


You, Some Kids, and the End of the World

by laughablyunimportant



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, Death, Emetophobia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Families of Choice, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Loss of Parent(s), POV Original Character, POV Second Person, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Apocalypse, Sadstuck, surrogate parenting, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-28 00:44:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6307075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughablyunimportant/pseuds/laughablyunimportant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Okay so." You stop. You look at the sky for a second. The big, starless, void of a sky. You look back at him. "So we're not on Earth anymore," you repeat, holding up a finger. "And Earth is being destroyed by meteors." A second finger. "And this magical game can transport people off of Earth to be saved from the meteors, but it transports them to weird melting dangerous crap metal land full of monsters, which is probably better but only marginally." Third. "And your friend is still on Earth, and needs to be saved from a meteor, but the person who is supposed to be saving her is missing in action." Fourth. "Right so far?"</p><p>He shrugs. "Mostly yeah."</p><p>You look at the void again. It's a very nice void.</p><p>You feel kind of dizzy.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Your name is Elizabeth Apex, and you've somehow survived the end of the world. You're not sure how you feel about this.</p><p>Dave Strider, your former charge and current neighbor, is the one responsible. For the saving you part. And also maybe the end of the world part. It's unclear.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>OC POV. How an adult thrust into a doomed timeline deals with all the emotional baggage the game has to offer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Definitely Not an Earthquake

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Such People](https://archiveofourown.org/works/288868) by [laughablyunimportant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughablyunimportant/pseuds/laughablyunimportant). 



> Blanket warning for this entire fic for canon typical swearing and canon typical ableism (stupid, dumb, crazy, etc).
> 
> I will post additional warnings in the chapter notes on the relevant chapters as I go, but it should be noted that the only unavoidable ones that get any kind of focus are in the tags.

You might have lived in Texas all your life, but you've seen enough movies that when the building starts shaking, picture frames rattling on the walls, you think _earthquake_.

You think there's something about standing in doorways, or maybe elevator shafts? But that probably doesn't apply when you're on the top floor of a skyscraper apartment building. And also, the city's on fire. 

There's shuffling, screams, confused yells and other sundry sounds coming from the hallway. When you open your front door, a steady stream of humanity is pushing its way toward the stairwell. A brief thought flits through your mind that there has to be a more orderly way to do this, but you shake it off. 

Instead of joining the flow, you snake your way over to your neighbors on the right and give the closed door a firm knock. The building's still rumbling, but doesn't seem in imminent danger of collapse to your amateur eyes, so you work your way down the hall, finding mostly empty apartments, but the occasional grateful, panicked neighbor is enough to keep you knocking until you reach the end. 

Apartment 1025. 

Strider's place.

The door swings open at your touch. You hesitate, balanced on a knife's edge of indecision. "Hello?" you call out. No response. "Mister Strider? Dave?" The place looks like a mess from where you're standing. You're unsure if it's "run for our lives" mess or "Striders are too cool for cleaning" mess, though.

You push inside to investigate further.

The main room is empty of life, but full of weird crap that you're simultaneously curious about and repulsed by. There's a big thing with a needle next to the window, and you wonder if it's some kind of industrial sewing machine before shrugging it off and heading for the bedroom.

There's. A toilet in the middle of the bedroom. And a hole in the ceiling. 

You somehow think these are recent developments. The super probably would have noticed a hole in the roof, though only probably. You have no idea how the toilet even got up there to crash through and make the hole without anyone seeing. Shenanigans, probably.

You're just about ready to exit back into the hall and follow the stairs up to the roof to investigate when another rumble makes the whole building shake. You fall to your hands and knees, landing hard enough to bruise. The lights flicker, then glow a lurid red. When you climb to your feet and head over to the window to look outside, your breath catches in your throat. 

There's heat coming through the window glass, palpable and oppressive. Below, a churning red goop too viscous to be straight liquid. Further out, metal structures jut into the sky, huge gears clicking and turning in time.

Okay, so. Not an earthquake then. 

* * *

By the time you remember your desire to go to the roof, your legs have almost stopped shaking. Perspiration is trickling its way down your chest, and you vaguely wonder if you're going to be stuck in boxer shorts for the rest of your life. 

Damn apocalypse, not giving you any sort of warning to get dressed in real people clothes. Very rude of it.

You note, with a sort of clinical distance, that your attempts to distract yourself from the seriousness of the situation by making inappropriate and not very funny jokes is sort of working.

The door to the roof is heavier than you expect, and you really have to put your weight into it. It swings open with a sort of methodical lumber, and you slip outside.

The world is. Pretty much exactly what it looked like through the glass. Only more real, now that the acrid air blowing across the roof brings you the smell of burning earth and metal.

Also, there's a huge weird science thing in the middle of the roof.

And Dave.

"Dave?" you say, and his head jerks up so fast you think you might even hear an audible _snap_.

" _Liz?_ " he says, and it's way more incredulous than the way you said his name. You feel like you should be offended somehow. Him being in this weird crazy magma world is _just_ as implausible as you being here, thank you very much.

His phone buzzes in his hand, and you imagine you can see his eyes dart from you to it. You wave a hand at him, and he starts texting again. By all means, go ahead.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] -- 

TG: wait bro  
TG: no seriously wait  
TG: my fucking babysitter just showed up

EB: uhm, what?

TG: im serious she just appeared right on the fucking roof all staring at me confused and shit  
TG: like she expects me to clean up this mess i just made  
TG: sorry miss didnt mean to get all this lava everywhere  
TG: ill get right on fixing everything up this minute  
TG: and then you can read me a bedtime story and tuck me in nice and tight

EB: you have a babysitter?

TG: had

EB: pfft lame

TG: stfu  
TG: seriously what am i supposed to do here

EB: well, i'm flying and about to win the game and all, so i'm not sure what you want from me.  
EB: but you should prooooobably stop standing there texting like a jackass while she stares at you.  
EB: just saying.

TG: yeah youre probably right  
TG: but what do i even say to her  
TG: is this even allowed to happen  
TG: carrying nonplayers into the game  
TG: or did I just royally fuck something up  
TG: more than whatever youre obviously fucking up right now i mean

EB: haha, very funny dave!  
EB: seriously just, say something to her.  
EB: i mean my dad is here somewhere i think, and i'm pretty sure rose saw her mom, or evidence of her mom, or something like that post-entry, so i don't think you're fucking anything up too royally.  
EB: not too royally for me to save us all with this kick-ass rocket anyway. pchooooo!

TG: did you just blast off like a total nerd

EB: no...but that would have been so sweet.  
EB: i was already flying, and i'm actually almost to the gate, so i really do have to stop talking.  
EB: meanwhile, you should START talking to HER, you horse's ass!  
EB: bye.

TG: yeah okay

He sure is taking his time texting over there. He must have a lot of really important stuff to say.

...Okay, this is getting ridiculous.

He pockets his phone and looks up right around when you open your mouth to say something. He looks at you expectantly. You close your mouth. He looks at you expectantly some more. You close your eyes, take in a deep breath, then open them again. That. Did not do a lot to orient yourself. Just kind of existing is disorienting right now.

"Would I be amiss," you begin, "in assuming that you know something about all, this?" Your hand flapping weakly on a limp wrist does little to take in the totality of the molten landscape.

"Uh," he says. Very helpfully.

You make a routine of clenching and unclenching your fingers at your sides. "I just mean, we're the only ones here. And you were on the roof with this weird. Platform thing." Science thing sounds a little too ignorant to actually say out loud.

His phone buzzes again. He looks at it.

"By all means, go ahead," you say with actual words this time. He seems to hesitate, then pulls out the phone. You walk over to the edge of the roof, doing an awkward transition from standing to squatting to sitting, legs dangling in the open air. Jesus it's hot out here.

\-- gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] -- 

GG: dave who is that??  
GG: is that your Bro? i thought he wore goofy pointy shades and was a cool dude all the time?  
GG: dave?

TG: nah you thought right thats not my bro its  
TG: uh  
TG: one of my neighbors i guess

GG: what're they doing here?

TG: fuck if i know

GG: well why don't you just ask them??

TG: well i dont know maybe because all these peeps keep blowing up my phone demanding all my time  
TG: shit its like im the sports and everybody wants to interview me after the big game  
TG: all brandishing microphones in my face  
TG: now that youve slam dunked the goal into doubletime, what do you plan to do next

GG: :////  
GG: it seems to me like you're just ignoring them!

TG: shes cool with it

GG: she seems pretty impatient to me!

TG: nah nah its cool she made the hand wave gesture and everything  
TG: me and liz are all kinds of chill

GG: her name is liz?

TG: idk i guess so  
TG: thats what i called her when i was little im not actually sure

GG: you knew her when you were little? i've never heard you mention anyone but your bro before!  
GG: is she your mom?

TG: what no shit harley how old do you even think she is  
TG: and i dont have a mom

GG: :(

TG: dont go making that face at me like this isn't something you already knew  
TG: pretty sure rose is the only one in the has a mom department  
TG: got a fucking monopoly on that shit  
TG: sitting pretty on a big ol stockpile of moms  
TG: looking to do a wholesale clearance at moms r us

GG: hehehehe yeah okay, but if she's not your mom and she's not your bro then who is she?

TG: youre really not all up on extended social circles on hellmurder island are you

GG: :?

"Dave?"

He holds up a finger, telling you to wait. The little punk.

"Dave." Much firmer this time. Nice going. He looks over. Huge success.

"There's something crawling up the side of the building." His eyebrows climb up past his sunglasses, and he walks over to where you're laboriously making the effort to stand again. He looks over the edge.

...And then he starts typing on his phone again.

TG: are their imps crawling all over my house right now

GG: oh, um.   
GG: yeah, sorry.

TG: do you think you could take care of them i sort of have a guest

GG: okay!

You hear a crash from somewhere down below.

TG: did you just break more of my shit

GG: your house is really small okay!

TG: its an apartment

GG: well whatever it is, there are walls and glass and dangerous things everywhere that sometimes explode and are totally not my fault, end of story!

TG: nvm ill just take care of it  
TG: here talk to my babysitter

Dave shoves his phone at you without looking up, then turns to face the door to the stairwell. "Be right back," he mumbles over his shoulder. By the time you've stopped fumbling with his phone and are pretty sure it's not going to slip out of your sweaty fingers, he's gone.

GG: what's a babysitter?  
GG: dave where are you going?  
GG: you're just leaving her on the roof? that's so rude!

TG: Hello.

GG: oh, hello miss liz babysitter lady!  
GG: sorry dave's such an ass, i'll be sure to bonk him on the head with a smuppet.  
GG: later though, when he's not swordfighting.

TG: Does he need help down there?

GG: i don't know, let me zoom in really quickly.  
GG: hm, it looks like he's doing alright! not a lot of imps can fit into his apartment at once. and some of them are exploding themselves with cherry bombs.

TG: Okay, that definitely sounds like something I should be concerned about, but I'm also in lava world, so.

GG: hehehe, yeah.  
GG: things can be pretty confusing here sometimes, but it all makes sense in the end!

TG: So I take it none of this is...unexpected? For you?

GG: well no not really, i knew this was coming for a long time!  
GG: i couldn't say much about it because i had to make sure all the things that were supposed to happen happened, but now that we're finally getting into the game everyone will know just as much as me!

TG: Do you mind if I ask what exactly is going on?  
TG: Actually, wait, first: should I be worried about that thing still crawling up here?

GG: oh huh i guess not all of them went inside.  
GG: hmmmmmm i'd message dave but he gave you his phone!!  
GG: i guess it would be okay for me to take care of it as long as i'm careful not to break anything.

The bed sitting on the roof floats up, wobbles for a second, then descends down the side of the building to smash face-first into the creature, which tumbles into the liquid below. The bed follows it.

GG: oh fuck!

TG: So you did that just now. Made the bed levitate.

GG: yeah! i'm dave's server player, which means i can move stuff around and help bring him into the game!

TG: Is this real? The place where we are right now?  
TG: I mean, you keep calling it a game. 

GG: yes! it's definitely very real. the game brought us here, but this place has always existed, and now we're here and can explore the land and actually play the game!  
GG: i've been waiting for this day for a long time.

You hesitate over the phone, discard the question that popped into your head, and type another one entirely.

TG: How old are you?

GG: i'm thirteen! we all are. john actually just turned thirteen today!

Jesus. Okay. You can deal with this.

TG: Who is, "all?"

GG: oh! well there's john, dave, rose, and me!  
GG: my name is jade btw.  
GG: john went in first, with rose as his server. then rose, then dave, and next is me!  
GG: john is supposed to be my server player, but i haven't talked to him in a while.

TG: Wait. Are you still on earth?

GG: yeah, but i better get going soon. there's a meteor coming, and i'm not sure how much time i have because john hasn't even deployed the cruxtruder yet!

You hear footsteps ascending the staircase, but ignore it for now.

TG: A meteor is coming.

GG: yes! meteors have been hitting all over earth.  
GG: the places where john, rose, and dave's houses used to be are totally gone!  
GG: i can't see mine yet, but i know it's coming, and i have to get out of here.  
GG: i wish john would answer me :(

Dave's standing next to you, one hand out like he expects you to hand his phone back. You put up a single finger telling him to wait, and almost suppress the smile it brings to your face.

TG: Does it have to be John to bring you in? 

GG: yes! i saw it in the clouds.  
GG: rose brings john in, dave brings rose in, i bring dave in, and john brings me in.  
GG: it's how it's supposed to go, and how i know it DOES go, but it still makes me kind of nervous to not hear from him.  
GG: :(

Dave clears his throat. You keep ignoring him, except to shift the phone a little higher in case he tries to make a grab for it. Ah, to be an adult.

TG: What if I brought you in?

GG: um....  
GG: i don't know about that!  
GG: you're not really meant to be one of the players.

TG: Okay, but I'm here. And you need to get in. It seems like the logical thing to do.  
TG: Also, Dave really wants his phone back.

You hand Dave back his phone. You fail utterly in attempting not to look smug.

He glances at the screen, then back at you. And then just kind of. Stands there.

This is productive.

"So," you start. "How are you?"

He stares at you. You think he'd look at you over his shades in disbelief if Striders didn't have this weird thing about shades.

"Was the fighting okay? Down there? Are you hurt?"

His face does the thing that means _oh, shes not that dumb i guess_. 

"Yeah, I fucking rocked that bitch like Bruce Lee going to town on a bunch of dragons. Lil' Cal's guarding the apartment now."

You want to question that a puppet is guarding the apartment. You want to question it _so_ bad.

You fail to resist the urge to question the puppet. "Is Lil Cal actually... _alive_ now?"

Dave shrugs, shifts a little. "Sort of? I threw him in the seizure kernel and now he's my spirit guide I guess. He mostly just laughed instead of saying wise old man Mr. Miyagi shit though."

Okay. The puppet is alive for real now. That's definitely not creepy at all.

It's really, really hot up here. 

"So," you say, because you're on a roll and why not, "we're not on Earth anymore."

He shrugs. "I think it's safe to say the twister deposited us way the hell away from Kansas. Even though the literal twister was at Rose's, and I fucking handled that shit like a banker. Like the lead banker at the firm who handles shit all the time. He's having an affair with the shit, homewrecking the handle and the shit for all he's worth."

You stare at him. You think his ears might be getting red. Jesus, you forgot how adorable this kid was.

"Okay so." You stop. You look at the sky for a second. The big, starless, void of a sky. You look back at him. "So we're not on Earth anymore," you repeat, holding up a finger. "And Earth is being destroyed by meteors." A second finger. "And this magical game can transport people off of Earth to be saved from the meteors, but it transports them to weird melting dangerous crap metal land full of monsters, which is probably better but only marginally." Third. "And your friend is still on Earth, and needs to be saved from a meteor, but the person who is supposed to be saving her is missing in action." Fourth. "Right so far?"

He shrugs. "Mostly yeah."

"Is there a reason we can't evacuate her to a safer location until your friend comes online?"

"Well I mean, she lives on an island in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, and also the Earth is doomed. Like less imminently doomed than her island but still on doom's timetable. Doom coming right up after this commercial break."

You look at the void again. It's a very nice void.

You feel kind of dizzy.

"Are you four the only ones who knew about...all this?" He's probably freaked out by how raspy your voice just got. You don't stop looking at the void to check.

"Well like, there were definitely other people playing the game, but if they got off before impact it wasn't to our session, so they're as good as dead from our perspective." There's a long pause. 

"Sorry," he says.

You think you might cry.

You really, really do not want to cry.

You keep looking at the void, distinctly _not_ thinking about the handful of people you knew and cared about on Earth, until it becomes abundantly clear that this isn't working and you look at the weird sciencey platform thing instead. "What's this?"

He follows your gaze, startled. "Oh that's the alchemiter. You combine stuff together and make sweet gear to own serious imp ass. More than they're already getting owned, I mean."

You walk over to the contraption. Your hand hovers just above the surface of the platform. "Make stuff?"

Dave joins you. "Yeah, Rose keeps calling it 'some form of alchemy' but there's really no some form about it. You punch the card, project the totem, make the item. One stop gear shop."

You're pretty sure that sentence made sense somewhere.

"Feel like showing me?"

"Sure."

He holds out his hand, and a card appears in it. From nowhere. 

Not the weirdest thing you've seen today.

The rhythm of having a kid demonstrate a toy for you is oddly comforting, even if you _are_ in a weird hellscape and possibly one of only five human beings left in all of existence.

Shh, brain. Show and tell time now.

The card has a picture of a blender on it. Dave turns it over, looks at the back, and punches something into the big alchemy science platform thing. A small beam off to the side projects a blue cylindrical thing onto a much smaller platform. A big metal arm starts to life, scanning the blue thing, and you just about jump out of your skin. You're pretty sure Dave is judging the hell out of you for how uncool you are, but that's nothing new. With a weird little pop, a blender appears in the middle of the large platform.

You pick up the blender. It sure is a blender alright.

You are disinclined to question this newest facet of science-magic.

"You can make anything?" You say, looking at him. 

"Anything you can captchalogue," he says. "You can combine shit too by arranging the cards right. Idk, read John's guide on it, he's a huge fucking nerd."

You're trying to parse out how to ask him that yes, you'd like to read up on that, but how, when his phone buzzes again. For some reason, you ask, "Who is it?"

"Jade," he says, and starts typing furiously.

"What does she want?" you say, with, you think, an admirable amount of patience.

"She still can't get ahold of John," he says. "And she can see her meteor coming."


	2. Ominous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor warnings for very mild violence and very very mild emetophobia.

\-- loomingZenith [LZ] has joined chatgroup The Big Game -- 

LZ: Okay I get that this isn't the way that things are supposed to go and all but I also don't think you're supposed to die, so.

GG: we just need to find john so he can bring me into the game!

TT: I'm inclined to agree with our guest, here. The means matter slightly less than the ends at our present point. 

TG: yeah but that does fuckall if we dont have another oh shit

TT: What?

LZ: What?

GG: what??

TG: my copy of the beta that you retrieved with the crow and were all mysterious about  
TG: this is what its for isnt it

GG: um, not really.

TG: seriously

GG: seriously!!  
GG: the copies are supposed to end up in a seed pod on my island for me to retrieve. that's how i got you in!

TG: damn

GG: and i HAVE the copies and i GOT you in so that's how it's supposed to go and how it WILL go end of story!!

LZ: Dave, you have another copy of the server disc?

TG: yeah

You turn around in your computer chair, rolling your shoulders. Mr Strider was not one to splurge on comfortable furniture, and this has been going on for a while.

"Couldn't you just...bring it to me? And I could install it and connect to Jade? Without asking her?"

He shakes his head from where he sits on the futon. "I'm already running server for Rose on my computer, I don't think I can sever the connection and cut to Jade."

"Yeah, but--" You stab a finger at the computer you've been typing on. Mr. Strider's computer. That isn't Dave's, and doesn't have any Sburb discs of any kind in it.

"Oh," he says. "Yeah, okay."

 

He brings you the server disc and shows you how to set stuff up in Jade's house. The group pesterchat is pinging like crazy, but you ignore it in favor of laying out the entire alchemy setup in as close and logical a fashion as you can manage.

It helps when Dave shows you how to expand her house's layout, so you can make a whole new room just for the alchemy gizmos.

He's typing furiously on his phone in between giving you directions, and you guess he and Rose must have convinced Jade that waiting was futile (or else, made her roboslap herself awake again and then convinced her more logical awake self? That definitely sounds made up, but Jade insists it happened before), because there she is, reluctantly alchemizing the item while casting worried glances in a general upward direction.

You zoom out, but not as far out as would be comforting, to see the meteor headed for her. Your palm feels itchy against the entirely inadequate mouse in your hand.

When you zoom back in, there's a blindfold over her eyes and a rifle in her hands. 

"We made the item, why isn't it working?" There is maybe a slight edge of panic to your voice. But only maybe. 

"She has to do something with the item."

"What?"

"Whatever she's supposed to do."

You are going to murder fate. You're going to find the avatar of predestination, and rip its face off.

"What is she supposed to do?!" you ask, but Dave's ignoring you, which is okay because you're sort of ignoring him. She has a gun in her hand, a blindfold over her eyes, and there's some kind of glowing piñata thing hanging from the tree. You try to click on the piñata, which does absolutely nothing. Then she thwacks it with the butt end of her rifle, and you feel like your role in this is kind of pointless.

The piñata explodes and propels her out the window.

Except that when the smoke clears, her house is _still_ on Earth, there's _still_ a meteor headed for it, and the piñata is _still hanging from that fucking tree_.

"What am I supposed to do?" Your voice is getting kind of screechy. You hate when it does that.

Jade has turned her rifle around and is now firing blindly as she falls through the air. You try to click on her, which also does absolutely nothing. You click a lot faster in the hopes that this will somehow improve your odds of doing something useful. 

It. Sort of does?

You realize, abruptly, that you have somehow managed to click on one of the bullets expelled from Jade's rifle. Your mind races. Does the bullet maintain its trajectory and power when you've clicked it? Which direction was it even heading? When you release it, is it just going to fall uselessly to the ground and everyone's going to die and you'll be a murderer?

(Seriously, what are even the _odds_ of clicking on a speeding bullet at random?)

You drag the bullet over to the piñata and release it, praying in the vague sort of hopefully good things will happen way you get when you don't actually believe in things.

The piñata explodes for real this time.

The background flashes white, and then a sort of softer grey white. There's snow falling, and you're pretty sure Jade's house is no longer on Earth.

You think you might pass out.

There's a soft _whumpf_ behind you, and you turn in your chair to see Dave slumped back on the futon, presumably having just thrown himself onto its questionably lumpy cushions, one arm hanging limply at his side while the other is resting on his forehead.

"Is she--did it not work?" You ask, chair creaking as you turn the rest of the way around.

"It worked," he mumbles. "Just give me a minute."

You agree wholeheartedly, and slump back in your own chair, staring up at the plain white ceiling. 

It's a very nice ceiling.

The computer dings, and you reluctantly swivel back to it and open pesterchum.

You scroll down through a bunch of chat you should probably read later, when you feel a little less emotionally exhausted, and get to words recent and relevant enough to be worth putting in the effort to read.

TT: And? 

TG: and what she hit the thing it exploded end of oh shit  
TG: fuck it didnt explode  
TG: i mean it did and she fell out of a window but shes still on earth destination meteorsville

TT: Fuck.

TG: just about  
TG: now shes just shooting everywhere but shes falling through space like thats going to do fuckall  
TG: wait  
TG: wait

TT: There is not much I can do but wait.

TG: i think everything might be fine  
TG: the pinata exploded for real now and theres a bunch of white shit everywhere that is no longer glowing red because its about to be blown up by a meteor  
TG: holy fucking shit i think we did it

TT: Then she's safe? You can see her?

TG: no but i mean house is in the medium ie were good

TT: I would still feel better if we had visual confirmation.  
TT: Dave?

LZ: I see her.

TT: Thank you. May I ask what she is doing?

LZ: Well she fell into a bank of snow. It looks like she's trying to get out of it? I'm not really sure what to do to help her here.

TT: Perhaps you could put something in the snow for her to climb onto.

You pick up Jade's bed and put it next to her in the snow. She looks at it, then glares in an upward direction that you think she thinks is you. Or your viewscreen. Whatever.

You obligingly put her bed back in her room and replace it with an armoured knight. She hauls herself up by the pommel of its sword and proceeds to trudge through the snow up the hill toward her house.

After twenty minutes of watching her progress and occasionally dropping another armoured knight nearby so she can haul herself out of yet another snow bank, Jade reaches her house and, more importantly, her lunchtop.

\-- gardenGnostic [GG] has joined chatgroup The Big Game -- 

GG: i'm here!

TT: Hello Jade. Glad to see you still reside among the world of the living. 

GG: hehe yeah, that was kind of scary there for a while!

TG: sup harley

GG: but i still feel like something is wrong here.  
GG: hey dave! sup with you, bro?  
GG: hehehehe

TG: jesus jade enough with this bullshit  
TG: we get that this doesnt line up with the great prophetic clouds of skaia but what the fuck ever like we were just going to leave you there to die

GG: no that's not what i'm saying! geeeze dave :P

TG: oh sorry

GG: i just mean that, even though i'm glad i'm alive and finally in the game and all  
GG: i just don't get it! this isn't how things were supposed to go at all!

TT: Is it possible that the clouds of Prospit lied to you? Or perhaps misrepresented the future, in order to engender its coming about in the future first place?

GG: i don't know...i don't think so!  
GG: the clouds always felt like they were telling the truth to me!  
GG: even if they couldn't show me everything, i don't think they'd deliberately mislead me. 

TT: The thing about deception is that insincere parties are rarely upfront about their intentions.

GG: i don't know, that just doesn't feel like the right answer to me.

TG: where the fuck is john anyway  
TG: no ones heard from him and conveniently forgot to tell the rest of us right

GG: no :(((

TT: I'm afraid not. And he's still missing from my viewscreen.

LZ: Is there some way we could physically go to his house and look for him?

TG: we know hes not at his house he blasted off on that rocket hours ago

GG: rocket??

TG: idk he said something about how he was going to blast off on this rocket and go win the whole game or something  
TG: right before liz showed up

LZ: That sounds ominous.

The sharp intake of breath behind you makes you kind of regret saying that. Damn.

TT: I think there's merit in the idea of going to John's house.  
TT: Jade, do you know if there's some way for us to visit each other's worlds?

GG: i know there definitely is! i've seen us working together on each other's planets! but...i'm not really sure how :(

TT: One moment please.

TT: I have an answer, but I'm not sure if it holds true in our unique situation.

LZ: Oh?

TT: I asked Jaspers, and if I'm interpreting his words correctly, second gates lead to the server player's house. As previously stated, however, I am unsure if this holds true for us.

LZ: Why?

TT: If Jade's pronouncements on how the future should have gone are to be taken at face value, Jade's second gate is the one that should lead to John's house, because he was to be her server.  
TT: Except that he wasn't, and we can't now be sure that any gates lead there.

TG: wait shouldnt his second gate lead to your place though  
TG: maybe we can go backwards through it  
TG: if thats even a thing that is possible  
TG: jesus where are the rules to this game even written down  
TG: someone get a fucking pen

TT: Well. Even if that were a thing that were possible.  
TT: Prior to the dilemma we currently find ourselves in, I may have blown up my first gate.

GG: rose!!!!

TG: fucking shit lalonde

GG: rose you should not have done that!!

TT: Yes, that is now becoming clear to me. 

LZ: Okay well is there some other way to get there? Besides the gates?

TT: I will consult Jaspers again. Though he's rather difficult to get a straight answer out of.

GG: maybe i should prototype my sprite...

TG: what it didnt get prototyped before entry

GG: no!! and that's another thing that's not right!

LZ: No one said anything about sprites.

TG: yeah well we were kind of in a hurry

GG: it stopped flashing, but it's still following me around everywhere.  
GG: it makes me kind of nervous!

TG: well what were you going to prototype it with

GG: i don't know...i thought maybe my grandpa, but it felt kind of wrong to do something like that without his permission.

TG: then just ask him  
TG: is he around  
TG: my bro ollied off somewhere after slicing a giant meteor in half

GG: yes but he's dead!  
GG: and i thought about asking bec but i can't find him anywhere!

TG: wait when did your grandpa die didnt you see him this morning

TT: I'm back.

GG: um, a while ago i guess. and yes, i did!

TG: what

TT: If I'm understanding Jaspers right, all of our planets exist in the same plane, but too far away from each other physically to make visiting each other practical without the use of gates, even assuming we could somehow just fly between them.  
TT: What's this about your deceased grandfather?

You slowly lower your head to the desk. These kids. Are killing you.

There's a sort of squeaky noise, like someone standing up from the futon. You twist a little to see. 

Yep, that sure is Dave, standing and coming over to you. He's so much bigger now. What the hell.

"You okay?"

"No," you groan, then regret it. Damnit. You have to keep it together. You're the only adult here. Just you, three kids, and the end of the world.

"Yes," you revise, lifting your head. You feel the stab of a headache coming on. Also, you're kind of thirsty. 

Dave looks at you dubiously, then glances at his phone. "Jade says we should try the second gate thing anyway, because John was supposed to be her server so maybe her gate goes to his house anyway." He shrugs, looking up. "And if she ends up here with us, it's not exactly the worst thing ever."

You nod, feeling yourself warming to the idea. "Yeah, okay, we should all probably get together actually. That seems like a good idea." 

"That's not what I meant."

You turn back to the computer. "What do I have to do?"

Dave sighs, then moves to stand next to you at the computer.

He points out the first gate above Jade's house, shows you how to access the building tools again, then absconds off to his room to start building Rose's house up. Even if she did blow up her first gate, there are gates higher up y'all might need to be able to access later on.

It doesn't take long for you all to reach your respective goals. You actually take the longest. You blame it on a late start and the lack of really solid foundation Jade's house gives you, but it sounds kind of lame to say those things out loud to thirteen year olds, so you just exist in a sort of embarrassed silence instead. 

They all use the extra time to alchemize more stuff, which makes you kind of nervous. Shouldn't you all be conserving this grist stuff for any building the game might require of you? Dave says it doesn't matter because you can always kill more monsters. You _can_ see the grist cache ticking up even as you build, presumably because Calsprite is now below the apartment somewhere, picking imps off the struts and bashing them in the face with puppets.

You shudder a little at the thought.

By the time Jade goes through her first gate, she has a fancy new outfit and at least six computers, and Dave decides he's ready to go through his first gate too. 

"I...are you sure about that?"

"I've been in this game for hours doing nothing but shitting around with my computer and watching other people get shit done. It's time to introduce this game to the Strider smackdown."

Oh my god, what a tiny adorable douchelord. 

"It doesn't really seem safe."

He pulls out a stack of cards, flips through them, then tucks them back into whatever nothingness they normally reside in. "I'll leave Calsprite here, don't worry."

You wrinkle your nose. "Dave Strider, you know that is not what I meant. Look, this whole place is crazy. Going out there is just the crazy frosting on the crazy cake. But I'm worried about you, okay? I know I practically haven't seen you in five years, but you're definitely still my favorite, and I don't want anything to happen to you."

The tiniest twitch to the corner of his mouth betrays what used to be an unselfconscious kid smile he'd flash your way whenever you said he was your favorite. Time's sure change.

"I'll be careful," he says. "I've got my sword. It's what I've been training for."

You wonder if that's true. It would make about as much sense as anything else at this point. Also be another reason for you to dislike Mr. Strider, so, you guess you're game.

You abruptly decide "I'm going with you."

He looks at you blankly. You look around his apartment. The super cluttered apartment full of dangerous stuff leaking out of every orifice. "Is there something I can use as a weapon?"

He stares at you some more, but it's not as clueless a question as it sounds! All the sharp stuff is as likely to injure you as an opponent, and your aim is absolute crap, so any precision projectiles are out.

After a lot of fussing and a little bit of exchanging codes with Rose and Jade, you end up with a plain and serviceable titanium bat. Plus a pocket full of cherry bombs and matches, just in case.

There was yet more confusion when Dave told you to equip it to your strife specibus and you told him you had no idea what that was. He finally solved the mystery of the disappearing and appearing items for you by explaining sylladexes and fetch modi, which you said you'd never heard of, and he'd never had back when you watched him. He seems...more than a little perturbed by this.

You're reminded just how much you don't belong here.

The trip through the first gate leaves you disoriented and boiling alive on a slowly rotating metal gear. Or, feeling like you're boiling alive, anyway. 

Dave, it turns out, has no idea where you're going. Neither do Rose or Jade when you check in with them, and it's hours of slogging through smalltime monsters and nakkodile villages, hitting the former repeatedly with a bat until they burst into colorful icons and trying to escape the latter with your wallets intact before you find what you're looking for.

The gate is, of course, guarded by monsters.

You suck in lungfuls of searing air as you swing your bat around, no longer flinching at the terrible _crunch_ noise it makes when it connects with monster skulls. Dave is stabbing and slashing and hacking stuff, and just generally probably doing a better job of killing things than you. You're not sure how you feel about that. 

You push your sweaty hair back and out of your eyes. You're pretty sure you just smeared imp goo all over yourself. 

Dave's facing the last opponent, some kind of cat salamander thing with a worrying penchant for barfing up lava. And also, tentacles. 

He finishes it off with a final decapitating swing. You give him a thumbs up and wheeze out "Good job."

You think he smiles, for a second, before turning to the gate.

You step up beside him and wait. This is clearly the time for a dramatic pause. And also, a catching your breath pause.

(Dave isn't even breathing hard. Damn his young kid body and young kid stamina. You're not even that old! Why can't you keep up. Why is existing so hard. And hot. And possibly on the verge of heat stroke.)

He nods to you in a solemn coolguy manner, which is adorable on his pudgy babyface, but also. Kind of chilling.

It makes you think of his brother.

He steps through the gate, and you step through right after.


	3. A Colossal Waste of Time

You think. You think you might be dying.

You go from hot to mind-numbingly cold in a matter of seconds. Wind howls around you. There are some kind of pretty lights dancing in the sky. Also spots, also dancing. Dave's lips are moving, but you have no idea what he's saying. Your heart is pounding really, really hard. Is this shock? Is this what shock feels like?

You're not actually sure what shock is outside a dramatic plot point on Grey's Anatomy.

Dave makes his way to the side of the platform and starts descending some stairs, and you decide this is a really good idea. About two flights down, you remember that this must be Jade's house, and Jade's gate, which you built these stairs to.

You built this city. You built this city on stairs and snow.

After a few more flights, you get marginally less cold, or all the moving you're doing is making you feel marginally less cold. By the time the wind is quiet enough for you to hear Dave, your teeth have stopped chattering enough for you to also hear Dave.

"...e'll be there soon."

You have no idea what he's saying.

You sensibly wait until you and Dave are inside Jade's house, with walls, and a fireplace, and lots of soft things to burrow under, before asking, "What?" Your teeth have started chattering again. You try to pull a blanket on top of you. You're sort of successful, but your fingers aren't really moving right. They're just kind of. Twitching.

And also, pain.

Dave looks at you like you're losing you're mind. He's still wearing the white puppet tux suit he had on when you two left his apartment. The one you said would be way too hot for him, but he had no real problem with.

Lousy kids and their lousy adaptability.

"Are you okay?" he asks, and you instantly feel kind of bad that he's holding up so much better than you.

"I'm fine," you mumble. "Just, weather whiplash. I'll be fine."

He looks at you a second more. "It wasn't that cold for me."

You bristle a bit, and must let it show, because he puts his hands up in a placating gesture. 

"Shit, calm down okay, no need to get your panties in a twist. I just mean, it's cold out there but not really any cooler than being cool, alright? Like cold is just visiting for a while, thinking about setting up a vacation home here but it's not really sure yet, just feeling out the area and asking the realtor what the local schools are like." He pushes his shades up on the bridge of his nose in a nervous gesture. "This stuff just seems to be affecting you a lot more."

You stare at him for a second, then _fwumpf_ back into your nest-pile of blankets on the couch. "I guess I'm not really supposed to be here," you say. That's. Chilling. In a totally different way than the blankets can combat.

"Have you really never heard of fetch modi?" he asks, moving closer.

Your mouth turns down, brows drawn just slightly together. "Yeah," you say. "Sorry."

"It just doesn't make sense," he says, pushing a few more life sized dolls to the ground so he can sit on the weird dusty couch opposite you. "I've been using this my whole life. I use hash map. There are books about it and everything."

"Not that I've ever heard of," you say, and his face scrunches up even more. 

"Maybe," you say.

Maybe the captachalogue system is another facet of the game. Maybe it's a piece of the alchemy system too useful, too necessary, to wait for the onset of the game to actually instigate. Maybe it just gets introduced to players' lives, and their memories are retroactively re-written to include them as a normal day to day feature of existence. Maybe this is exactly the kind of thing the game pulls on its players all the time.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

"Maybe," you say, "We should check up on how Jade and Rose are doing?"

He pulls his phone out of thin air, and you pull yours out of your pocket. 

It appears to be dead.

You glance up at him, typing away at his phone.

His does not.

Damn game shenanigans.

You toss your phone across the room, kind of regret it, but not enough to go over there and pick it up. Just enough to glare at it halfheartedly.

"What do they say?" you ask instead.

Dave answers without looking up. "Jade says she just got to John's, she's still making her way downstairs. Rose made it to my place while we were still on LOHAC, and I texted her where the second gate was while we were outside, so she should be here soon."

Oh. So that's what he was saying.

"We should wait for her before we head out to Jade's second gate."

He nods. "Yeah, that's what I was thinking."

* * *

You think you might have drifted off there, under your pile of blankets in front of the roaring fire, because when you next open your eyes, the fire is down to embers and Dave is talking with someone in the next room. 

"--not like I want her to die or anything."

"Oh, good. With that resounding endorsement, I feel full confidence in putting the totality of my faith in her."

"I didn't say we shouldn't _trust_ her, just that I don't know her that well. I haven't seen her since I was like two."

That's probably Rose, and they're probably talking about you. You feel like you should listen in on it? But you're terrible at that, and also kind of too warm now. 

"And _I'm_ saying that I think it's a _mite_ suspicious that a mysterious figure from your past, who you hardly know but are nonetheless inclined to trust, showed up _just_ when John went out of contact."

"What, are you implying she had something to do with that? I was still talking to John when she showed up. He lives in Washington. How could she even have done anything."

Okay, that's enough. You get up, letting all the blankets slide to the floor in an unceremonious heap, which is, pretty much how you found them. Theeeen you promptly trip over a globe. Two heads poke through the doorway to look at you.

"Oh wow," you say. "Your eyes are really pretty."

Rose blinks at you. Blinks again. 

Dave....Dave puts his head in his hands. 

"Don't worry Dave, you're still my favorite," you say, standing up and brushing your hands off on your cargo shorts.

"Oh my god," Dave mumbles into his hands. You smile in his direction. Rose looks at you with what is possibly appoval.

"So." You put a hand on your hip. "Did Jade tell y'all where the gate is?"

They look at each other, then back to you. 

"Yeess," Rose starts. "But, Dave suggested that perhaps you should stay here, while I accompany him to join Jade at John's house."

You look at Dave, who has lifted his head out of his hands, and looks a bit like he wants to murder Rose.

"It's just," he starts, "you're not really cut out for all this. No offense or anything, but I've been training for this all my life, Rose is a natural badass, and Jade lives on savagecritter kill isle, so I'm not really sure what a middle aged babysitter with a baseball bat is going to do. No offense."

"I'm not really a babysitter anymore," you say. "And also, I'm coming."

Dave groans and put his head in his hands again. Rose stares at him in a sort of disbelief.

"I thought that, considering the problems you had on your way in, you might elect to take a more behind the scenes role in this adventure."

Rose sounds irritated with you. You wonder if it's because you're ignoring her in favor of going back to the couch and gathering up a blanket that you think is actually a moose pelt.

"Dave," you say, "tell her I'm coming."

"She's coming," Dave mumbles into his hands.

Rose rounds on Dave. "I just thought," she hisses, "based on what we discussed--"

"Look," Dave says, lifting his head. "Just because I haven't seen her since I was four--"

"Eight," you call from across the room.

"Eight," Dave corrects, "doesn't mean I've forgotten what she's like. She comes with us, or she trudges after us through the snow, planning how to give us the verbal smackdown whenever she catches up. If she catches up. Which, babysitter popsicle, not something I want to think about."

You suppress a shiver, then turn around with an armful of animal pelts and a smile. Rose looks at you sourly. "Great," you say. "Now that that's settled, where's the alchemiter again?"

* * *

The trudge out into the snow is a lot less traumatic than the trudge down the stairs was, it turns out. For one thing, you have a moose coat now. For another, the snow only comes up to your knees, while it's up to Dave's thighs and nearly up to Rose's hips. You try, and fail, not to feel smug about your height advantage. You even offer them piggy back rides, which you weren't totally joking about, and you think Dave might have accepted (for completely ironic purposes, of course) if Rose hadn't been there. She smiles at you, if a bit frostily, and you have the sneaking suspicion that the way to her heart might be mildly antagonizing Dave in humorous ways. You're not sure how you feel about that. 

The monsters aren't too difficult to deal with. The snow slows them way down, even encasing a few entirely in ice. You get pretty hot inside your coat bashing them over the head one at a time, while Dave stabs a couple and Rose takes care of the bulk of them with what she is calling magic, and you're just kind of accepting that okay, you guess magic is real or something. 

Your face is frozen and your fingers are numb by the time you find the gate, but you don't really feel like you're dying. You thank vaguely wishing for good things to happen for the moose coat.

Rose and Dave, of course, don't seem to feel the cold at all, except as a minor inconvenience.

This is utter crap, but, kind of useful crap, you decide. It's not like you really want them to suffer, and it's nice that you don't have to worry about the kids under your care dying from exposure or anything.

Jade is waiting for you all when you step through the gate.

"Sup," Dave starts to say. And then is tackled in a flying hug. That seems kind of dangerous and ill thought out, but, what with his weird magical destiny and all, probably won't kill him.

Rose stands over the pair of them until Jade yanks her down by the ankle, and then there's just this adorable pile of kids hugging each other to pieces that you feel kind of warm watching. And also. A little out of place.

"Come on miss Liz babysitter lady!" Jade calls over to you. Her glasses are halfway down her nose. Jesus. Dave better look out, this girl is _adorable_. "There's a hug here for you too!"

"I don't think I can handle those kind of aggressive tactics," you say, pulling off your coat and sitting down before she can pull you down. "I surrender." Jade promptly climbs into your lap, which is a little weird, because she's thirteen, and a _big_ thirteen, but also kind of nice, because it's been a really, really rough day.

You wrap your arms around her and give her a squeeze. She squeezes back, holds the position for just long enough that tears start pricking at your eyes, then pulls away. 

Business apparently taken care of, she starts right in. "I've looked everywhere, but I can't find John!!"

"Did--"

"Have you--"

You pause. Gesture for Rose to go first. She gestures back. You gesture again. She gestures back, far more elaborately and ingratiatingly. You swear Dave is rolling his eyes.

You clear your throat. "Did you check his computer?"

She nods enthusiastically. "I thought of that, but it's gone! I think some imps must have thrown it out the window; they were all over his house when I got here."

Rose frowns. "Where's Nannasprite?"

Jade shrugs, her eyes wide. "I don't know! I haven't seen _anyone_ since I got here, just imps everywhere. You don't think something happened to him, do you?"

You swallow. You've been thinking that since Jade first told you she hadn't heard from him in a while. From the looks on Dave and Rose's faces, they reached similar conclusions a while ago.

"Is it possible he's sleeping?" Rose asks.

This was apparently the wrong thing to say.

"I don't _know_!" Jade all but wails. "I was asleep for _ages_ waiting for him to wake up on Prospit, and when I finally went looking for him, he wasn't in his room! Then the moon blew up, my robot exploded, the trolls wouldn't answer me, and, and--" her face screws up into an ugly knot, tears leaking out of her eyes. "I don't understand! This isn't how it was supposed to go _at all!_ "

Dave is frozen, sitting cross-legged, the perfect picture of _shes crying. shes crying. what do i do. engage panic mode now._

Rose doesn't look much better, only with the slightest hint of distaste, as though such an emotional display is unseemly.

It takes you a second, but the whole caretaker of children thing kicks in eventually.

"Hey, hey," you say soothingly. "It's okay. You might not know what's going to happen next, but that's how most of us operate all the time, so we'll figure it out together, okay?"

She looks at you, blinks, sniffs mightily. "You don't get it," she says in a tremulous voice. "The future I saw was the only future that could possibly happen. I should have waited for him. I shouldn't have let you bring me into the game. This is all wrong wrong _wrong!_ " Theeeeeen she starts sobbing.

You look at Rose and Dave for help. Rose has gone from distaste to pure bewilderment, while Dave seems ready to take a stab at comforting his friend. 

"Jade," he says. She keeps sobbing. He looks at you.

"Jade," you say. She keeps sobbing.

"Jade," Rose says firmly, and slaps her. 

Jade starts wailing.

"Rose!" You give her a reproachful look.

She glares at you.

Jade keeps wailing.

"Jade, please stop, I think these crazy broads are going to kill each other, or befriend each other, or become the best of snarkfriend hatebuddies, and I can _not_ deal with that, do you even know how much shit Liz has on me or what Rose will do with the metaphorical shit if she finds out? She'll be the farm hog all rollin around in it squealing for all she's worth, rubbing my snout in it every god-damned day, hey Dave, did you have plans for the rest of your life, too bad, you're in the fucking shit now."

Jade stops wailing.

"Oh thank fuck," Dave says.

You give Rose an uncertain look. She maintains her frosty glare.

Jade sniffs. "I'm sorry," she says. "I'm sorry." She sniffs more loudly, and for a second you think the waterworks might be about to start up again.

"Let's think about this logically," Rose interjects. "What, exactly, did John say to you befoe he fell out of contact, Dave? Word for word?"

Dave pulls out his phone. "Oh." You think you can see the tips of is ears turn red. "He, uh. Said he was going through the seventh gate."

You think. You think this whole thing may have been a colossal waste of time.

You think everyone else might be thinking it too.

No one says anything.

"Sorry," Dave says, and his face is really red now. "I just didn't--"

"So where's the seventh gate?" You ask brightly. 

Three heads crane back to look upward. You follow suit.

"Oh," you say faintly. "I guess. We have some more building to do?"


	4. Fuck All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning in this chapter for a canonical major character death, for description of a dead child, and for references to past child abuse.

Building up to the seventh gate is exhausting.

You give up on chaperoning all three of them all the time, but you do insist that they never go out alone. You think they listen to you. Probably.

They're getting stronger a lot faster than you. It seems like while all this fighting keeps making them deadlier, it's just making you dead tired.

You're all conserving grist now, taking care to only alchemize with non-building grist or, if absolutely necessary, to only use build grist to make things you think will net you more grist in the long run. You end up making a spreadsheet about it. You're not sure anyone else uses the spreadsheet, but it makes you feel a little more helpful.

By the time the pathway to the seventh gate is fully constructed, it's pretty obvious that the kids don't need any sort of looking after. And even if they did, Dave and Rose have both unlocked the ability to bring their sprites with them. Next to them, you're absolutely useless in a fight.

You still insist on taking this particular mission though.

All three of them argue with you. You point out that yes, they are all perfectly deadly killing machines and you have weak noodle arms and a baseball bat, but imps don't really seem interested in you. Not when you're on your own, at least.

They concede the point. Dave insists the hardest, only giving up when you agree to alchemize a pair of camera shades that will record everything you see and send it back to their computers so they can watch from John's house. Between that and the third phone he has to alchemize for you, because if you hold on to one of theirs too long it stops working, you say it's like they're there themselves.

No one really buys that. But John's been gone 48 hours, and you think they're just as reluctant to confirm the worst as you are.

The gate takes you straight to Typheus' palace. It's...huge. And empty. And honestly kind of creepy.

LZ: You guys there? 

TT: The feed is coming through loud and clear.

GG: you're breathing kind of loud! are you okay?

LZ: Don't worry, that's just the sound of an out of shape adult.

A low rumble shakes the walls as wind whistles down the hall.

TT: That sounds worth invesitgating.

GG: be careful!

LZ: I will.

You follow the rumbling, as much as rumbling is a thing that can be followed.

An hour in, you begin to wonder if you should have let one of the kids take this mission after all. 

You squash the thought down as hard as you can.

TG: you okay

LZ: Yeah, just taking a rest for now. Don't worry about me.

TG: worried whats to worry about  
TG: youre just heading into the lair of a super monster that happens to be the last known location of my best bro  
TG: who we havent heard from since

LZ: If I die, you still have a 10pm curfew.

TG: damn

You hope he's laughing at that, because trying to distract yourself from the situation with inappropriate and not very funny jokes isn't really working this time.

You glance up at the ceiling. Grey stone. You forge onward.

You find, two hours in, a gushers wrapper.

GG: john eats those.

TT: He must have come this way. I suppose it's reassuring to know you're on the right track.

You do not feel reassured.

There's more detritus, from time to time, telling you that your path has converged with John's. Rose's tense commentary gets more and more tense with each passing moment. Jade and Dave have stopped commenting altogether, until

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering loomingZenith [LZ] --

TG: wait

You pause next to a blue pipe organ. You sort of knew how to play piano once. Like three notes. You wonder if you can remember enough to play a chord.

LZ: Yes?

TG: just

LZ: Dave?

TG: whyd you even stop coming over

You glance briefly at the header of this conversation and realize it's a private chat.

LZ: Your brother didn't tell you?

TG: no

LZ: He decided to go with another babysitter. Someone cheaper, I guess.

You head toward the steps.

TG: no he didnt

You stop.

TG: there wasnt anyone else

TG: i took care of my damned self

LZ: Oh. I'm sorry.

TG: its fine i was old enough i just wondered why i guess

LZ: Okay well, eight is definitely not old enough to look after yourself.

TG: okay well i did though and im fine

TG: striders are tough

You climb some stairs. You stop.

LZ: I thought he was hitting you.

You probably shouldn't have said.

TG: what

You definitely shouldn't have said that.

You wish there was a wall for you to lean your head against, but there's just a whole crapton more stairs stretching up to some kind of landing.

LZ: Bruises, and cuts. I started finding them all over you. He said you were just clumsy, which is red flag number one, but he said it in this super obvious way like he knew it was a red flag? Even as he was saying it? And that meant there wasn't really anything wrong, because if he knew it was a red flag why would he say it if it really was a red flag?

TG: oh  
TG: he started teaching me to strife around then

LZ: I know. 

TG: oh

LZ: One day, I asked where you got this particularly nasty bruise from. You got juice on your shirt and had to change, and when you took it off, your whole chest was purple.

TG: i think i remember that

LZ: I asked what happened, and you said you got it fighting with your bro. You seemed scared.

TG: nah i was just embarrassed  
TG: he kicked my ass with one hand tied behind his back  
TG: literally

LZ: I confronted him about it, and he said he was teaching you self defense. He stopped hiring me after that. He told me he'd decided to switch to someone else when I asked him about it.

You reach up to wipe your eyes, lifting your glasses to get at them.

Oh shit. Your glasses.

\-- loomingZenith [LZ] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --

LZ: How much of that was visible on the feed.

TT: Fine print is difficult with a constantly moving and wobbly view and point of focus. 

TT: But it's fair to say, most of it.

Fuck.

You lift your glasses to rest on top of your head, because who needs glasses to navigate stairs and text at the same time? Definitely not you.

LZ: I'm sorry, Dave.

TG: its not a big deal really no need to make a thing of it  
TG: i just figured id ask in case youre about to bite the big one  
TG: no sense in letting that question haunt my ass for the rest of eternity  
TG: in addition to your ghost of course

The stairs stop. Huh. You guess you've reached the top. There's some kind of corridor stretching out in front of you, curving slightly so you can't see the end. Guess there's only one way to go.

You slip your phone in your pocket. It buzzes at you almost immediately, but you ignore it. The whistling and rumbling noises are cacauphonus, filling the corridor as you make your way down its length. It starts to get incrementally brighter, and then, abruptly, the walls fall away, and you're at the mouth of an enormous cavern.

At least, you think it's enormous. It feels enormous. But your glasses are still perched on your head, and the far wall is a fuzzy green and white blur, while the ceiling is a much more distant black blur.

A few things happen at once:  
You realize that the whistling rumbling has stopped.  
The wall moves.  
Your phone makes a dying noise from your pocket.

You reach a shaky hand up and flip your glasses down to sit on the bridge of your nose. 

You don't scream. You don't. Really. 

You _do_ fall flat on your ass. It hurts. A lot.

Oh look. The ceiling. A very nice, far away, not blurry ceiling.

You look back at the monster, who is definitely awake and probably looking at you. You're not really sure. It doesn't seem to have eyes.

It makes a growling sound, a lot more aggressive than the previous rumbling sound. 

Okay, maybe you scream a little.

You glance around the room frantically. You're not sure why. The exit is literally right behind you. But you're basically loosing your bowels in terror right now, and your actions don't make a whole lot of sense. 

The place is enormous beyond comprehension, but devoid of any real fixtures, except rocks, and the giant pants shittingly terrifying monster right in front of you continuing to make growling noises. 

And the body.

Your breath catches in your throat. 

There's a small lump at the base of the monster, unremarkable but for the relative unremarkablility of the rest of the cavern. It is approximately the size of one human child.

There's also a lump in your throat. It's kind of hard to breathe.

You sneak a glance back up at the monster. Is its face closer to you than it was before? Oh, okay, yes, its head is swaying now.

A _thump_ makes all the little rocks and pebbles on the floor rattle.

So it's swaying and thrashing its tail.

You want to run. You really, really want to run. You found their friend. The friend you don't know, and have never met, and basically don't care about at all. He's definitely, definitely dead. For absolute sure. And you don't care about him. At all.

You get to your hands and knees and crawl towards the monster.

It's just, you think. Well first off, it's not fair. That's a true thing you're putting out there right now. This is defintely not fair and you hate everything and everyone and especially Dave Strider.

And especially Dave Strider's brother.

You mean, if he supposedly knew about the end of the world five whole years ago, why didn't he tell anyone? Sure, there's the, no one will believe you and everyone will think you're crazy thing, but the whole apartment building kind of thought that about him anyway. He couldn't have just mentioned, "Hey, by the way, the world is going to end in five years and the only way to save yourself is by playing this computer game" in the mailroom or something?

And if he _didn't_ know, then what even was all the "strifing" nonsense about? Just run of the mill this guy never should have been allowed to raise a child bad parenting? Who even _let_ him raise a kid, anyway?

The answer is, you, sort of. You saw the signs. You said something. You got fired.

And you just. Let it drop.

And beautiful, bright, ridiculous, tries too hard, needs constant love and approval Dave Strider, your first, your favorite kid--

It's just, you're pretty sure if you don't do this right now, he will.

And your running away has put that kid through enough hell already.

Every shake and thump of the monster's tail rattles your bones. It's making weird warbling sounds at you now, kind of like a whale. You find this a lot less intimidating. Or maybe you've just transcended normal human fear reponse and are on a whole new plane of existence right now.

It's a brave new world, and you're pissing your pants all over it.

You reach the lump, and kind of, stop short. It's a kid, you think. Charred black. John, presumably.

You feel a little sick, and a little empty, and very, very distantly afraid.

You pull the kid into your arms. He's stiff, and not as heavy as you know a kid his size should be.

You stand up with the kid in your arms. The monster is still thrashing and warbling at you. You give it one last look, and turn your back on it. Which, brings some of the fear back. But you make it out of the cavern and back into the corridor alive.

 

It takes you almost half an hour of walking around in a daze with a corpse in your arms to realize you're lost. You think about texting the kids, and then remember the dying noise your phone made. And _then_ you remember your camera glasses, and try really, really hard not to look at the body.

It takes you another half hour to find what you think (hope) is a return node. Your arms are leaden, you smell like barbecue that's been left on the grill too long, and you feel like you might pass out, so you don't really question it too hard.

It takes you back to John's house.

Jade's waiting for you.

Her eyes flick to the body in your arms and she flinches. Your heart clenches, but she doesn't address her dead friend's corpse in any other way. You do her the courtesy of not mentioning it, and she does you the courtesy of not mentioning...pretty much everything that is going on with you right now.

"Here," Jade says, fishing a necklace pendant out from under her shirt. She extends her hand, palm up, with the pendant in the center, and a blue orb appears above it. "Throw him in."

You blink at her. 

"His body," Jade says, firmly looking nowhere near said body. "Throw it in the kernelsprite."

You. You throw him in the kernelsprite, you guess.

Your weak noodle arms are even weaker and noodlier than usual after carrying him for an hour, and it's obvious in the way he more tumbles out of your hold than gets thrown. But it doesn't seem to matter, because the kernelsprite hones right in on him. There's a bright flash of light, and then--

"Whoa! Jade? Am I alive? Am I a _sprite_? What are you doing here?"

You suddenly understand fuck all.


	5. People Skills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for references to past child abuse.

In the excitement of John being back and (sort of) alive, the kids don't notice when you just kind of...wander off. 

This is good. You're a little overwhelmed. And full of pent-up yelling. Which is unfair to them, but also really, really unfair to you.

You stopped at one of the many copy-pasted kitchens a quarter of the way down this goofy tower of houses, and have been sitting here for...a while now, you guess.

"I'd like to apologize."

It's Rose. Okay.

"We never disclosed to you the power of kernelsprites to resurrect the dead. I fear this may have caused you some distress. To be fair, we didn't even discuss the matter amongst ourselves until you had visual confirmation that John was, indeed, dead. Perhaps it seemed a little morbid, given the uncertainty of the situation."

You put your head against the counter you're sitting up to. It's very nice and cool.

"Elizabeth."

"Rose." You're being childish and you know it. 

"I'm very grateful for what you did."

"Is he okay?" you ask.

"Who?" she says. "John? Or Dave?"

You blow out a very noisy breath. There's a scraping sound, like Rose pulling up a chair next to you. Her feet probably don't even reach the floor.

"John is confused, but excited. When I left, he was brainstorming with Jade and Dave on what his second prototype should be. They've so far shut down 'ghost,' 'ghostbusters computer game,' and 'matthew mcconaughey poster.'"

You could sleep here. Probably. Maybe you should try?

"Dave is happy. He hasn't said so, of course, but I predict he'll confess some type of feelings for John before the week is out."

"Huh." You'd had an inkling that Dave might like boys. Buuut you can't actually tell if she's serious or not.

"You have some commentary on the situation?"

"No."

"Alright."

She pauses. Drums her fingers on the countertop.

"What exactly," she says, with all the pointed accusation of an investigative journalist, "are your intentions with Dave?"

You look up. "Excuse me?"

You meet the purple intensity of her gaze for a brief moment before shifting your eyes to look somewhere just over her right shoulder. 

"Did you know he had a way off Earth? That he was playing the game? Was it your intention to take John's place in our session?"

A sharp bark of laughter from you startles her. She flushes. 

"If you're only going to mock my genuine concern--"

"Rose," you say. She stops, pursing her lips. You stop too, because you didn't think ahead this far.

"I didn't...have any idea what I was doing, when I went into Mr. Str--Dave's apartment. I was just, trying to make sure everyone made it out okay."

She narrows her eyes. "And you just happened to be there right when he entered the medium." You nod. "And completely fail to notice the game mechanics going on up on the roof."

You shrug. "To be fair, Mr. Strider was always doing weird stuff on the roof."

A dark look passes over her face. "What you said to Dave..."

You shut down. "Nope. Not up for discussion." You stand up, pushing off against the counter, and kind of wobble a bit. Rose pushes her chair out in response.

"If Dave's brother was hurting him--"

"Then it's none of your business," you say firmly, heading for the saloon doors.

"Just like it was none of yours?"

You stop. Fume. Run through a couple of really mean things you could say, that you feel bad for even thinking of saying to a thirteen year old. 

"I think you feel guilty about abandoning Dave. You were prepared to leave him to his own devices back on Earth, but now that he's your last remaining link to the life you knew, you won't let him go. You've built up the relationship you had with him in your head until it's near all-consuming in intensity, and you won't allow anything that shakes your worldview to enter into the picture. It's why you're trying so hard to win his favor."

That sure was...a whole lot of bullshit she just said. "I didn't abandon Dave," you say. You're trying for condescending. You think you land somewhere around pissed the fuck off.

" _I'm_ not saying you did. I'm simply stating the fact that you _think_ you did, and that you feel guilty because of that."

You turn to face her. "Listen, a couple of books and the wikipedia page on Sigmund Freud don't make you a psychologist. You have no idea what I think or feel, because you're a child."

She looks hurt. You wince. That...was kind of mean.

You sit down again. "I'm sorry. It's been a few years since anyone put me in charge of...other people."

"It's alright," she says with a remarkable degree of frostiness.

"No, it's not," you say. She eyes you. You mull it over.

Oh, hell.

"I feel guilty for abandoning Dave," you admit. "His brother was acting suspicious, and instead of going to child services, I let the whole thing drop."

"Why?" she asks.

"Because," you say, waving your hands around in a semi-meaningful way, "I cared about him, I guess. I watched him since he was a baby, two or three times a week, for _years_. When you get a kid like that, I guess you start feeling like--" Rose has one eyebrow up in an artful arch. You backtrack to her question.

"Oh. You mean. Why did I let the whole thing drop."

"Don't let something as pedantic as my meaning stop you. By all means, go on."

You sigh, staring down at the tiled counter. "I don't know. You think you're a good person, who does the right thing. And then something comes along to test it and you just. Don't. And you want to fix it, but you don't know how to talk about it, so you just don't do that either. You just keep doing other things that look right on the surface and hope it's an approximation of how the person you pretend to be would act. Until another important decision comes along and the whole thing starts over again."

Silence. Then,

"I think," Rose says, very carefully. "I think my mother might have been like that."

You look at her. For once, her intense gaze is not focused on you.

"Do you want to talk about it?" you ask.

"Not really," she tells the kitchen tile, "but I probably should."

The text on her little green eye screen thing bumps up, and her eyes flick to it.

"Hm," she says.

"Hm?" you ask. 

"John wants to talk to us," she says.

You stay seated. For a moment, so does she. Then she pushes her chair out and stands. She extends her arm toward the doors with a little bow. "Lead the way."

You return the gesture with the most elaborate and ingratiating bow you can manage. "Oh no, m'lady, you first."

When you straighten back up, you think the corner of her mouth might twitch up the tiniest fragment.

* * *

"So, it wasn't really the troll's fault that I died!" John is saying, one hand resting on the back of his head. His rabbit ears twitch and flick, and it's kind of adorable.

"Not arguing that you're not a dumbass, but that definitely sounds like the trolls fault to me bro."

"No, see, Typheus gave me The Choice, so really--"

"And you chose death?" Your eyes flick to Jade, then John. He looks just about as uncomfortable as the atmosphere feels.

"Well, yeah," he says, lowering the goofy back-of-the-head hand. "It was that or--"

"Or what?" Jade says. "Or you could, bring me into the game? Tell us what was going on? _Not_ make us think you were _dead_?"

John flinches.

 _He_ was _dead_ , you think. _Really, really dead_.

"What _is_ going on?" Rose asks. Her voice is raised, just slightly. John looks, if anything, even more uncomfortable than before. 

"Um, well." He gives a nervous chuckle. "This is a doomed timeline?"

Dead silence. 

You raise your hand. John looks at you. "Yes?"

"Hello, yes, non-player here. Please explain in the simplest, non-game terms possible what that means, without vaguely stopping in the middle of the explanation and witholding important information."

The answer comes from Dave. "It means that we fucked up somewhere along the way, and now we're dead." No inflection to his words. You take a shuddering breath. 

"And?" They all look at you. "That doesn't sound like a full explanation to me. Where's the rest?" Everyone looks back at John.

"Pretty much what Dave said," John says. "There are some key things that have to happen to fulfill all the loops in Paradox Space. One of them is that this timeline had to happen, and I had to die, so Dave would go back in time and become Davesprite."

Lots of questions. Start simple. "Did we ruin that by resurrecting you?"

John frowns uncertainly. "I guess not? This timeline is still definitely doomed, I can feel it." Dave nods in agreement at this, which is a little disconcerting. "And I only had to be dead so Dave would feel like he had to go back, but now I can just _tell_ Dave to go back--ow!"

The last was because Jade punched him.

"Which is what you should have done in the first place! You! Dingus!!!" She punchuates her statement with punches. You mean punctuates.

"Ow ow ow!" John says. "I didn't know, okay! Typheus only gave me two choices, and I chose the one that meant success in the alpha timeline!"

"And got yourself _killed_ ," Jade growls.

You hold your hand up again. This seems to stop Jade's tirade, or at least pause it. "Dave is going to go back in time?" you ask. You do not look at Dave.

You do not. Look. At Dave.

"Yup," John says.

"And the rest of us?"

"Oh," John says. "Uh."

Jade looks like she's winding up for more punching, so you put a hand on her shoulder. She looks up at you, and she's angry, yeah, but her eyes are also brimming with tears, and you're really, really trying not to lose it here.

"Well, the rest of you can't travel back in time," John finally says.

"So what happens to us?" you press.

"I don't really know." 

Jade punches John in the gut. You let her. 

Then you pull her back and hug her from behind. She squeezes your arms tight enough to hurt, and you squeeze her right back. 

Dave glances over at the two of you. _She's my new favorite now_. The tease is on the tip of your tongue. But Dave couldn't handle that kind of teasing, even when the world wasn't...not existing anymore. 

"Ow," John wheezes.

"Come on dude, suck it up," Dave says. 

"Yeah, quit being a baby," second Dave says.

Jade tries to turn to the new voice, but your grip on her has gone white-knuckle tight. You bury your face in her hair. You really hope this is okay with her, because you sort of need it right now.

"So, this conversation was obviously headed toward the big question, as in, can Dave even do the thing, and the answer is, I can. I am the star. It's me. And also you." You assume the last is directed at past/present Dave.

"Huh," Dave says. "Cool."

"Just don't think about it too hard," Dave says. "Go with the flow. Take that flow to prom. Take pictures with the flow to put up on the mantle at home. Take the flow back to a hotel room, but don't pressure the flow, because you're a classy guy and it's not like that."

"So just do it?" Dave asks.

"Yeah pretty much," Dave says.

Nothing changes, but you get the feeling there is suddenly one less Dave.

You keep your face buried in Jade's hair.

"Are you okay?" future/present Dave asks. This is probably directed at you, based on the way Jade tries to tilt her head back to look up at you.

"I'm fine," you mumble into Jade's hair. "Everything is fine."

"I don't think she's fine," John says in a stage whisper, that you don't think he knows is a stage whisper and not a whisper whisper. 

"One hundred percent totally fine," you say.

There's a lock of hair in your mouth. You decide to leave it.


	6. Avoid or Abscond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for underage drinking and emetophobia in this chapter. Stop when you reach the end of the Dave section if you'd like to avoid.

"So you were dead."

John looks up at you, startled, and freezes, nose twitching. The deck of cards he was holding slips out of his fingers. Then he seems to shake it off, running a hand over his ears nervously. "Oh, uh, yeah."

"What was that like?"

He blinks at you, then breaks into a grin. "Pretty cool, actually! I met a lot of people, and got to talk to friends from different timelines and go exploring lots of neat worlds and stuff! Oh, and I dated a troll for a while, but she kiiiiiiiind of got bored of me? Or afraid that I was making her boring? Or something. But that's okay because I'm not sure I was super into the dating thing anyway."

You hover next to the arm of the couch uncertainly. "You were only dead for two days. Ish."

"Haha, yeah, uh. Well, time moves differently in the dream bubbles."

You decide to sit down on the couch. "Dream bubbles."

He nods. "It's where we go when we sleep. Or die." He scratches his ear. "I'm not explaining this very well."

"How."

He looks at you blankly.

"How do you get to the dream bubbles?" you elaborate.

"Oh." He looks uncomfortable. "You just do. Or we do, I guess. Whenever we sleep, if our dreamself is dead, we wake up in the dream bubbles. It's not really a game construct so much as something one of the trolls set up with the horrorterrors, I think."

You take in a deep breath, and push it out. "And me?" you say. "Can I get to the dream bubbles?"

He's...drifting away from you? Is he actually trying to run away right now?

"Oh geeze, I think Jade is calling me, I've gotta--"

"John." 

He looks miserable, and you feel kind of bad, but you need to know.

"Can non-players get to the dream bubbles? If they're sleeping, or..."

His ears droop. "No," he says, and he won't meet your eyes. "I looked for my dad for what felt like a really long time, but he just...wasn't there. And I know he's dead. In the alpha timeline, I mean."

He doesn't sniffle, but he still won't look at you, and you get the distinct impression that he's about as close to crying as he ever gets.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He's out the door before you even finish your sentence. "Looks like Jade's calling me!" he yells over his shoulder.

You stare after him, letting the silence of his departure fill the room.

Well. Now what.

* * *

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] --

EB: jade? Can i talk to you?

GG: it seems like you already are!

EB: hehe yeah i just mean, in a more serious way. where we sit down and get really important stuff done.

GG: is what we’re doing now not important?

EB: no i’m sure figuring out the frog breeding equipment is very important.  
EB: the knight always helps the space player with frog breeding, so dave will need to know this when he goes back and talks to other dave.  
EB: probably.  
EB: but the important things i am talking about are completely unrelated and probably something we can do at the same time anyway?  
EB: bluh this is hard to say.

GG: what is it john?

EB: jade…are you mad at me?

GG: oh.  
GG: why do you think that?

EB: well for starters, because you weren’t all like what! no john, i could never be mad at you! how could you think that you dunkass!   
EB: and then hugging me really hard.  
EB: and maybe more punching.  
EB: oh god, the punching. 

GG: :/

EB: see this is what i mean. i thought maybe you were just down because of the doomed timeline and all, but i see you talking to dave and rose in the groupchat and i’m starting to think it’s just me you don't want to talk to.

GG: well…

EB: i know i really messed up and made you feel bad, and i’m really sorry about it.

GG: it’s not about that!

EB: it’s not?  
EB: wait, so you ARE mad at me!

GG: grrrrr….

EB: please don’t growl, my bunny brain is easily intimidated  
EB: even if it was originally stuffed.

GG: oops! sorry.

EB: hehe it’s okay, i was joking.  
EB: mostly.

GG: hehehehe!

EB: so…why are you mad at me then?

GG: it’s…for reasons that are pretty dumb and silly i guess :/

EB: how very informative of you.

GG: shush you! this isn’t easy for me either.  
GG: it’s just…  
GG: a lot of my problems are all your fault!  
GG: and i don’t just mean you going to typheus, though that’s definitely your biggest screw up of all!

EB: well gosh, i’m SO sorry jade.

GG: don’t apologize sarcastically to me! you don’t even know what you’re apologizing for!

EB: well then, could you maybe tell me?

GG: siiiighs.  
GG: it’s just.  
GG: did i ever tell you why my robot blew up?

EB: well i thought it was because your dreamself died, but i get the feeling you’re about to say because of me.

GG: yes!  
GG: i was waiting for you to wake up on prospit, but you wouldn't wake up!  
GG: so i flew to your tower to see if i could wake you up myself, only you weren’t there!  
GG: i looked for you EVERYWHERE, and while i was looking, prospit got blown up!  
GG: or the moon did, anyway.  
GG: and i died, and now i have no dreamself to merge when dave goes back in time.  
GG: and...

EB: and?

GG: and...  
GG: and it's your fault i never got to see my grandpa again!

EB: what??

GG: it's true!

EB: i'm not questioning the authenticity attribute of your statement, i just don't really follow.

GG: well...he's been dead for YEARS...but i really miss him, and i was looking forward to getting to bring him back to life with the kernelsprite.  
GG: it would have been nice to talk to him again, even if it was just for a little while, in a doomed timeline.  
GG: i could have had someone to talk to about all the stuff i'm feeling! since i haven't seen bec since i entered :(  
GG: but we hadn't heard from you in hours and no one was saying anything but it seemed pretty likely something bad had happened to you.  
GG: it was my choice to save my kernelsprite. no one asked me to!  
GG: but i'm still just. so. mad!!

EB: geeze jade, i really am sorry, i didn't realize i'd messed things up so much for you.  
EB: i know there's not really anything i can do about those things but, is there anything i can do in general?

GG: i'm not mad at you!

EB: bwuh??  
EB: i thought this whole conversation was about how you're mad at me!  
EB: i'm confused.

GG: i am mad at you, but...not really at you.  
GG: there were just so many things i thought would go a certain way, that didn't go that way at all.  
GG: prospit LIED to me john.  
GG: so i guess who i'm really mad at is...me.  
GG: :/

EB: but the things you saw on prospit DID happen. or have happened. will have happened?

GG: but not to us!!  
GG: i trusted the things i saw in the clouds completely! i never once thought they might not be true, for me i mean.   
GG: i thought i knew all this stuff about the game and what it meant to play and what would happen to us.  
GG: i thought i was doing something great!  
GG: but in the end i just got everyone killed.  
GG: it's all my fault. 

EB: it IS your fault jade.  
EB: but not in the way that you think.

GG: well what am i supposed to think when you say a thing like that!

EB: what i mean is.  
EB: it's your fault that i even met dave or rose in the first place and had this bunch of great friends the last couple years.  
EB: it's your fault that i've had tons of fun mixing music and making inside jokes and sending presents around the country every which way and getting all these rad bunnies for my birthday. and now sort of being a bunny i guess?  
EB: it's your fault that we played this game. and even though what's happening to us in this doomed timeline really sucks, it's still something really important i think.  
EB: we started on this whole journey because of you. not just this journey, right now, to go back in time. but the whole thing!  
EB: i don't know everything, but i just know that whatever happens, it's going to be amazing and incredible and it's going to be all thanks to you jade!  
EB: you once told me that you thought if anyone could save the world it would be me...but i think if anyone could save the whole UNIVERSE, it's you!  
EB: alpha you, dream you, and you you, right now.  
EB: i guess what i'm saying is...i'm really glad you're my friend.   
EB: jade? are you okay?  
EB: you've been staring at that frogsicle for an awful long time now.

GG: thanks john. i'm really glad you're my friend too. 

\-- loomingZenith began pestering gardenGnostic --

LZ: You know you can always talk to me if you have anything you need to get off your chest, right?

GG: were you...spying on me?

Whoops. 

Did you mention you're really bad at eavesdropping?

LZ: Uhm. Yes.  
LZ: Sorry I guess I just sort of forget that not every chat is a group chat. And that camshades are a safety feature, not a spy tool.

GG: >:(

LZ: I'm sorry Jade, I can drop the whole thing, I promise.

GG: no...i guess it's alright if you saw.   
GG: but i'd appreciate it if you kept your eyes on your own screen in the future!

LZ: Yes ma'am.

GG: hehehehe 

LZ: But for real, if there's something you want to talk about...

GG: that is a very nice offer, but. i think i'd rather talk with my friends!  
GG: since we are kind of all in the same boat.

LZ: That's understandable. 

GG: sorry.

LZ: No, it's alright, you're right. It isn't really my place. 

* * *

You open your eyes with a sharp inhalation, feeling your skin prickle in the dry heat. You sit up on the futon, letting the sheet covering you pool around your waist as you reach for your glasses. When you look up, you see Dave frozen in the kitchen, bottle of cold apple juice clutched in his hand, and feel perversely satisfied about alchemizing a working fridge and laying this little trap for him, even if unintentionally.

"When are you from?" you ask. You don't know why you're whispering. It's not like you have to keep quiet for the neighbors.

"Uh," he says. Very helpfully.

"It's just, I've been seeing a couple of you running around, and. I get the feeling that you stop talking to me, at some point."

"Well I'm not there yet," he says. 

You blow out a breath, leaning back against the futon and looking at the ceiling. "Do you have time to talk now?"

"I'm practically drowning in the stuff. Shit can't keep its grubby paws off me. I'm the headline act at the Clocktower, and every tiktok gent in the joint's reachin in for a handful of that action. Clocktower’s the name of the strip club I moonlight in btw. My stage name is Destiny's Bitch."

You smile. "So that's a yes then?

He opens the apple juice with a twisting snap, cold beverage hissing as it hits the hot air. "I'm not going anywhere for a while." He pads over to sit on the other end of the futon. You look at him then, propping your elbow up on the futon back and leaning your head against you hand. 

He takes a swig. Fidgets. "What?" he says.

"Nothing," you say. "You're just...so much bigger than you used to be."

He snorts. "Yeah well, five years'll do that to a person. It's not like you haven't seen me at all, you only lived a few doors down, and I just know I was the talk of the building, whole message boards dedicated to Dave sightings, people collecting shit I'd thrown in the trash and pinning it up on massive corkboard collage pieces tucked away in their closets. It's a heavy burden being this awesome, but someone's got to bear it."

You keep smiling at him. He twists the apple juice cap nervously in his hands. "So what'd you even want to talk about, anyway? Future me giving you the slip?"

"Oh," you say, smile dropping. "No, I just figured you--he--was busy. Or that time stuff meant he couldn't, or something. No, uh." You stumble over your words, and it occurs to you that here, sleeping on Dave's futon in your pajamas, hair a mess, sheet gathered around you and feet tucked under you like a child...you might have let your guard down a bit too much. 

"It's nothing," you say. "Had a nightmare. Didn't want to go back to sleep."

"Yeah," he says. "Sleeping's a bitch."

You shift uncomfortably. "You know you can come to me, right? For things like that?"

He shrugs. "Not a big deal. Besides, it's all Derse dreaming these days."

"What's that like?" you ask. 

He shrugs again, takes another drink of apple juice. "It's whatever. The Sovereign Slayer stays holed up in the palace most days, trying to figure out how to start the reckoning. Dumb fuck doesn't know a doomed timeline even when he's right in the thick of it. Had a couple a close calls nearly running into his agents, but for the most part the moon's quiet, like none of them even know what to do with themselves now that Prospit's toast and they're still here."

"Is it...dangerous?" you ask.

He snorts. "See, you're always all on about this dangerous shit, and I just don't get it. Like, we're in fucking magical destiny land where everything wants to kill us or riddle us to death and oh yeah, eventually time and space itself will cave in, crushing all of existence in this particular corner of paradox space, and the only way to escape it is to fuse with a feathery orange asshole with a sword in his gut. The danger meter kind of goes straight out the window here."

"I still worry," you say.

"Jesus, that's what your dream was about, wasn't it?" You avert your eyes, feeling your face get hot as he lets out another laugh.

"I don't know why you even care so much anyway."

You stiffen.

"Dave," you say.

He jerks, hand tightening on the bottle in his grip. 

You try to make your tone a little softer. "Why _wouldn't_ I care about you?"

"I don't know," he says, twisting and untwisting the bottlecap. "Because we're pretty much all dead anyway? 

You give a slow blink. "How do you mean?"

He doesn't look at you. "I'm leaving the timeline, aren't I? Ollie'ing the fuck out of this biznitch to younger, sweeter timelines. Moving in with my second family out in the suburbs. It's just once a month weekend visits to the snooze zone for you kiddo. Except, not even that where you’re concerned."

You try to formulate a response, but there's not room in the thoughtless Dave ramble. "I'm pretty much the only thing holding this timeline in place right now, right? Egbert says this whole thing was so I would go back, and maybe for dream Rose a little, but existence is pretty much waiting on me to do its going out of business sale, camping out all night for those door-busters, ready to trample the shit out of anyone who gets in the way." He darts a glance at you. 

"So what's it even matter if the whole thing's going to curl up on itself and die like a worm on sunbaked concrete? Keep crawling asshole, nothing but burning oblivion for you."

"I know this whole thing is screwed up," you say. "And that I won't be around for, all of it. But that doesn't mean I suddenly stop caring about you."

He looks, very studiously, at one of the discarded Xbox controllers on the floor. "Except you will. Because you won't exist."

He's got you there.

"Will you keep caring about me?" you counter. "When I'm gone?"

He hauls himself up. "What would even be the point?" he says, tucking his half-empty bottle of apple juice away into nothingness and heading out the front door. 

Well. He's got you there too.

You can hear his tread on the stairs heading up to the roof and, presumably, his first gate, putting as much distance between himself and you as rapidly as he can.

You think you might have found the point at which future Dave stops talking to you.

* * *

Your head jerks up at the sound of an explosion blaring tinny through computer speakers.

LZ: What was that?

EB: huh?

GG: what was what?

You set your sketchbook and pen aside, scanning the four sets of camshade feeds open on your laptop, quickly honing in on the one full of smoking rubble.

\-- loomingZenith began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] -- 

LZ: Rose? Are you okay?

TT: Busy.

You examine her feed, trying to figure out what’s going on. As you watch, an arm lifts, pointing a black wand at a corner of still standing structure. A beam of darkness shoots out, reducing it to dust.

LZ: What are you doing?!

TT: Investigatoring.

The view screen wobbles as she makes her way forward, climbing over and around debris.

LZ: I thought we agreed not to blow anything else up until we knew if we’d need it in the future?

TT: No. Yu saif not to. I made agreable noiseses inr response..

LZ: Rose?  
LZ: Are you okay?  
LZ: I’m coming out there. Just stay put, alright?

It takes you five minutes to actually get going, reassuring the groupchat that things are fine and you’re just going out to join Rose since she appears to have left Jaspersprite behind, and another thirty minutes to actually find her, rewinding her feed and following her path until you can see the smoke rising from the ruins into the sky.

She’s perched on top of a fallen pillar, crouched low as she traces her hand over some kind of carving on its surface.

“Rose?” you call out.

She looks up…and falls off her perch.

“Rose!” You hurry forward, but she’s already standing and brushing her clothes off when you reach her. She squints up at you in the glaring light of LOLAR.

“What're yoou doing here?” she says. She’s swaying a little on her feet, and you think, maybe, you might just smell…

“Are you drunk?”

“Pfahahaah.” Her laugh is a wheezing mess, a far cry from the superior smile she usually graces you with when she finds something suitably amusing.

She takes a step forward and stumbles, crashing sideways into you instead of sashaying haughtily past, which is what you assume she was going for.

Up close, her eyes are bloodshot, and her breath absolutely _reeks_. Crap. When did she do this? How long were you not watching the cams for?

“Lemme go,” she says, pushing at you ineffectually. “I’m fin, Im fine—“ She stops. Burps. Claps a hand over her mouth. 

Ohhhhh crap. 

You manage to get her pointing away from anything important and bent over as you hold her hair back before her heaves turn into actual vomiting. She goes a couple rounds, coughing and breathing wetly in between, before she straightens up halfway.

"I think 'm done," she says after a few shallow breaths. Her voice sounds like a garbage disposal.

You hand her her own scarf to clean up with and hope she doesn’t mind later. She wipes her face down with clumsy hands, dropping it to the ground when she’s done and rising fully with a slight sway.

"This place," she pronounces with her new laryngitisified throat, "is faaaar too bright."

You pull off your camshades and hand them to her. Everything is significantly brighter now, but also blurrier, so you guess it evens out?

She blinks, takes them from you, and blinks a few more times.

"You vision is really bad," she says. "Really, really bad." Then she giggles. And burps. And groans. "Nooooooo. No more, please."

You both wait a few moments. 

"You okay?" you ask.

She nods, very deliberately. "You're bein’ very adult about th’s," she says, swatting at the air behind her until she finds the column from before and sits on it heavily. 

You sit next to her and snort a tired laugh. "I am being the exact opposite of adult about this."

"No no no," Rose says, shaking her head a little too enthusiastically. "You're good. This is very good." She pats you gently on the knee. "Good job."

You place your hand on top of hers. She seems fascinated by this, staring intently at the way her delicate fingers disappear beneath your dark palm. “Rose, why were you drinking?”

She wiggles her fingers. You withdraw your hand. “Rose?”

She looks up at you, and you think, behind the dark lenses, her eyes might be welling up. “I miss her,” she says.

“Who?” you ask.

“My mom,” she mumbles, not so much leaning as falling into your side. “I just wanted…to get to know her.”

“There are better ways than this.” She sniffs, and you’re aware that the shoulder of your shirt is getting wet. 

“Will you at least tell me, the next time you feel like this?”

“You’ll stop me,” she mumbles into your side. 

You sigh, and begin stroking her hair. "I should," you say, "but I won't. If you promise to tell me, and to listen to me when I tell you you've reached your limit."

“I listen,” she says. “I’m always lishening to ‘em, but they won’ tell me ‘nything _I_ want t’know.”

“Who?”

“The horbibbles.” You pause in stroking her hair, your hand resting heavily on the back of her head.

“What do they say?”

“I don’ want to go back. I don’ wan’t’be a handful of mimories for some other Rose to sift through.” She looks up at you, and you think you see streaks of wetness catching the light on her cheeks. “I’m scared t’not exist,” she says. “Aren’t you?”

"We'll talk about this later,” you say. “When you're not drunk.”

She buries herself into your side again. 

You tilt your head back and look at the sky.


	7. Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings include another child death, blood, sort of emotional manipulation?

The Dersite agents get to Jade. 

You don’t know why her. You don’t know why now. You have a feeling that predestination plays a role somehow.

You hate predestination. 

She doesn't turn her camshades on one morning. You don't think much of it, she forgets sometimes (orrrr maybe leaves them off on purpose, you're not sure, after the stunt you pulled), but. John's aren't on either, and he leaves his on basically 24/7. 

You're pretty sure they bedded down at John's house for the night, so you pop over to take a look. 

You find her still in bed without much difficulty.

Correction: you find her body still in bed without much difficulty.

There's. A lot of blood. Her neck is a mess. 

You think you might be sick.

You stumble out of the room, hands shaking and vision swimming.

"John?" you call. "John?"

No answer.

* * *

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] has entered groupchat The Big Game -- 

TG: its time

LZ: What do you mean?

TT: Are you sure?

TG: whats there to be sure about   
TG: our witch is dead and our heir just zapped right back to the afterlife with her  
TG: what have we even got to stay here for

TT: It just seems a bit hasty to me.

LZ: Dave, we should talkk about this.

TG: hasty shit took goddamn six months or something  
TG: idk im losing track with all the time shit

TT: It just seems as though you're making this decision based on unrelated factors. 

TG: unrelated goddamn lalonde is that what you think this shit is

LZ: Dave.

TG: the fucking universe walks right up to your front door   
TG: knock knock who is it  
TG: its your dead friends corpse with a cute little note taped to their forehead that says get your shit together   
TG: its time to stop dicking around and get a move on

LZ: Dave, listen to me.

TT: Would you just answer her already?

TG: point is weve drawn this out as long as we can  
TG: if we go much longer paradox space might decide to scrap us altogether and start on a new dave thats not quite so fucked up

LZ: Will you just TALK TO ME.

TG: time to get your snooze on

TT: I will.  
TT: When you acknowledge the metaphorical elephant in the room.  
TT: You're being incredibly rude.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] has left groupchat The Big Game --

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --

TG: man fuck that noise  
TG: that i may or may not be denying is an audible thing that exists

TT: Why are you being so obstinate about this?

\-- The Big Game -- 

LZ: Dave? Are you still here?

\-- turntechGodhead is idle! --

TT: He's here. He's just moved to private chat with me. 

LZ: Thank you. Can you tell me if he leaves? He's switched out his camshades for the regular iShades. If iShades can be said to be a regular thing.

TT: That might be a little difficult. 

LZ: Oh right. The sleeping thing.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] continues pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --

TG: why are you being such a huge cock about this

TT: Excuse me?

TG: whatever shit ive got is my shit and i dont appreciate you steppin all in it dragging it all over the house  
TG: leaving a trail of shit prints through the living room and up the stairs like youre single handedly determined to bring down the property value and fill this house with crap that has no business being anywhere near the property

TT: She just wants to talk to you.  
TT: The least you could do is acknowledge her existence, considering you're the one that brought her here in the first place.

\-- The Big Game --

LZ: Could you just keep talking to me then? Until you go?  
LZ: Sorry, I know it's selfish, I just.  
LZ: I don't

TT: I can do that.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] continues pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --

TG: oh my blistering FUCK what does she even want me to DO for her

TT: Pardon?

TG: i get that times running out for her and all but despite longwinded rants and complicated metaphors i am not in fact made of the stuff  
TG: i cant give her a new lease on life just by wishing it  
TG: hell the whole fucking earth died and she was supposed to be on it  
TG: you think shed be grateful or something for the magnanimous gift of my company for the last five months  
TG: six months  
TG: whatever  
TG: instead of being on my jock all the time about saving her a fucking gain

\-- The Big Game -- 

TT: This may sound impertinent, but in the interest of facilitating communication, I have to ask:  
TT: What is it exactly that you want from Dave?

LZ: for him to talk to me!

TT: Nothing else? No demands you plan to place on him, his time, or his power?.

LZ: No!  
LZ: I just don't want the last conversation we had to be the last conversation we had. There are things I want to say to him.  
LZ: Please, Rose. It's important to me.

TT: I see.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] continues pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --

TT: She says she wants no such thing from you.

TG: youre teaming up with her to double guilt me right now what the fuck lalonde

TT: "The fuck" is that you are being an insufferable prick for no real reason.  
TT: Is it so hard to believe she just wants to talk to you before you go?

TG: why

TT: Is it so hard to believe she cares about you?

TG: again im gonna have to go with why

TT: Haven't you ever had someone who just cared about you?

TG: im getting so sick of these condescending bullshit questions

TT: Well, then maybe you should answer them instead of responding with your own.

TG: fuck this  
TG: im giving you sixty seconds to go the fuck to sleep  
TG: then im travelling back with or without you

TT: I feel the need to insert an obligatory "you can't be serious."

TG: tick fucking tock rose lets go

\-- The Big Game --

TT: I'm sorry to do this, but I don't have much time. Dave has given me an ultimatum.  
TT: I have slightly less than sixty seconds now to fall asleep, or he says he'll be leaving without me.  
TT: For some reason, I believe he's serious.

LZ: Go, Rose.

TT: If there's something you have to say, I would suggest saying it now.  
TT: Perhaps I can carry the memory over into the new reality and deliver it to him when we have more time.

LZ: go!  
LZ: I appreciate what you're trying to do but there's not point in you just  
LZ: Just go to sleep, okay?  
LZ: I know youre afraid but this is

\-- tentacleTherapist is idle! --

You stare at the computer screen for a long moment, contemplating what to type next. If you should type anything. If there's even a point. 

You're still staring at it when the house goes dark.


	8. Leftovers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings this chapter for unreality, derealization, panic, anxiety.

You look up. The light fixture is exactly where it's always been. You're not really sure what you were expecting. That it had disappeared? Exploded?

But, nothing so dramatic. It's just. Out.

So's the power in the rest of the house, it seems. It's a bit difficult to navigate by the dim light of glowing mushrooms bleeding in through the windows, but you make it as high as the first gate at least, and head down to the planet.

LOWAS is...empty.

You don't make a habit of seeking out consorts, but you don't go out of your way to avoid them. On the by now familiar trek from John's house to his second gate, you don't see evidence of a single living creature besides yourself. Even the air is still, hanging thick and humid beneath the clouds.

LOLAR is significantly brighter, but...not as bright as it should be, it feels like. 

You throw open the windows on each level of Rose's expanded house as you make your way down to ground floor. There's a cursory effort to search for her, and you give halfhearted calls of "Rose?" about every other level, but honestly, your own voice echoing back at you is starting to freak you out.

Is the light getting dimmer the longer you stay here, or is that just you?

You take several breaks just to remind yourself to breathe.

LOHAC is a furnace blast of heat, almost refreshing in its normalcy. It's when you stride (hah) out to the far edge of the platform to look at the land across a lake of lava that you feel the fear really start to settle in.

It's...gone. 

The jutting structures, the towers of metal, the grinding _click click click_ of the gears. It's just. All. Gone.

You sit down.

You notice, in your awkward transition from standing to squatting to sitting, legs dangling in the open air, that there are patchy islands of black rock down below, where the lava has slowed its constant churning and cooled to a solid surface. You contemplate, briefly, waiting until its solidified and going out to look for Dave's second gate, check out LOFAF just to complete this round robin of futility, but you let the thought sink back down into the panicky soup that is currently your brain without much fight.

Your hands grip the edge of the platform, white-knuckle tight. It feels, more than a little hard to breathe. 

You look down again and realize, with a distant sort of panic, that you can see through the platform. 

You remind yourself to take deep, slow breaths.

It feels like you're choking. 

It's sort of just. Fading out of existence. It still feels solid beneath your fingers (which, incidentally, are _not_ fading phantasms), but you can see less and less of it with every passing minute. 

Of course, that might just be the ambient glow of the lava dimming all around you.

When the panic inside you reaches a boiling point, your swing your legs back up onto the platform and lay flat on your back, staring up at the void.

You slowly, slowly, get your breathing under control. 

You're not sure how long it takes the red light at the edge of your vision to fade to black. You just know that you never let your gaze waver from the unchanging darkness above. 

_Will you keep caring about me? When I'm gone?_

_What would be the point?_

You were sort of hoping, in that vague way you get when you don't really believe in anything, that it wouldn't come to this. This was, in fact, worst case scenario.

A swooping feeling in your stomach informs you that you can no longer feel the platform against your back. You clench your fists, count down from ten, and stubbornly inform yourself that you can _definitely_ feel the platform against your back, and you will not allow it to be otherwise.

It sort of works.

You keep tapping the side of your leg, trying to make sure you're still there. 

This isn't really what you thought it would be like. When you allowed yourself to think about it at all. 

Your heartbeat is thunderous in your head. You open your mouth, thinking to drown it out, even for a second. 

You close your mouth.

You think about Rose's last bid to pass a message along for you. It seems so long ago, but it can't have been more than a few hours between then and now. If "now" is still a reliable point of reference.

You were so desparate to get Dave to talk to you before he left. You don't know why. You should have known he wouldn't. You _did_ sort of know. That's why you snuck that package into his sylladex a few weeks ago, not knowing when the critical moment might come.

Well, it came. It went. And here you are, still clinging like a barnacle to the side of Paradox Space. Unsightly, unseemly, and honestly, probably damaging to the overall functionality of the equipment. 

You try to pretend that was funny. 

You guess.

If you're being honest with yourself, you were being more than a little selfish.

_I'm scared to not exist. Aren't you?_

You count a few more of your breaths.

It's just. 

It was important to you. It was really, really important to you, that Dave remember you. Rose, too, and Jade, and even John. But most especially Dave. Your first, your favorite kid. 

It was really important for him to remember you, not because you needed to be remembered, but. Because _he_ needed. He needs.

You just.

You just--

* * *

You fill your lungs as full as they can go.   
Hold the swell of existence inside you for _one, two, three._  
Then force it out in a shuddering exhale as you   
deliberately  
uncurl your fists and   
let   
go.

* * *


	9. The Package

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning this chapter for violation of personal privacy.

Dave holds a manila envelope between his fingers with a practiced casualness.

"Think you slipped something of yours into my sylladex with all that gear," he says, holding it out to Davesprite.

Davesprite takes it, turning it over gingerly with his clawtips to see "To davesprite" scrawled on the front.

"Oh yeah, thanks," is all he says before tucking it away in--not a sylladex, exactly. More abstract and visceral than that, now that he's a sprite, the ones and zeroes of the item breaking down, waiting for him to call on them to reassemble into a physical item when the time comes.

Davesprite knows Dave wants to ask him about the envelope. He also knows that Dave knows that Davesprite knows. And that Dave can't ask without seeming uncool, which Dave knows that Davesprite knows, and Davesprite knows that Dave knows that he knows.

"So about the nancho arc," Davesprite says, which effectively shuts that line of inquiry down altogether.

He forgets about it until almost a day later, settling in on a golden battleship and struggling to come to terms with another interminable wait before anything Real happens. 

He feels its sharp corners poking just at the edge of his mind, and yanks it out of non-existence in irritation. 

It's just...a plain manila envelope. Kinda fat and heavy. He looks at the address, "To davesprite." Slips a claw under the flap and slices it open, upending it on a table to examine the contents. 

A notebook slides out.

Wait, no. Not a notebook. 

A sketchbook.

He almost chucks it out right then. He knows who it's from, though he doesn't know why she would give it to him, why she'd be so persistent in taunting him, even now, from across all of time and space. 

His hand closes around it, squeezes, then...lets go.

He sets it back down on the table and flips it open. 

The first few pages are just doodles. A gear here, a frogsicle there. A silly Johnsprite with his hands up next to his face, sticking his tongue out.

The work takes on more focus a few pages in, portraits of John, Jade, Rose, and him. He thinks, for a moment, about camshades peering into dozens, hundreds of private moments without permission, gets angry, then. Just. Lets that go too.

About two thirds of the way through, it's obvious that her drawings get a little less life capture and a little more fanciful reminicing. For one thing, they're almost all of him. For another, he's younger.

There's one of him at the playground down the block from his apartment, sitting in the shade under the jungle gym instead of actually out there running around.

There's him outside his old elementary school, sitting on the curb in that one spot in between two bushes where none of the teachers could see him, where he'd wait to get picked up from school when he had detention and couldn't ride the bus. 

In this one, he's sitting on someone's lap, though their legs are only barely sketched in. His hands are all out of whack, the texture of the paper making repeated erases evident, but it just sort of adds to the clunky way his tiny hands grip the oversized controller. There's no TV, no indication of what he's playing, but he feels a memory tugging at him anyway, someone's chin resting on his shoulder, asking him where he's going, what he's doing now, why's he talking to that guy, letting him play and ramble on for hours...

The last picture in the book is a decent approximation of what he looks like now. She got the position of the sword wrong, and his ruff of feathers is less fluffy than it could be, but it's definitely him.

At the bottom, it says "Chin up."

He flips the page. There's nothing on the back.

He closes the sketchbook.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] --

TG: hey jade  
TG: got any tape

GG: hey davesprite!  
GG: um...i'm not really sure.   
GG: there's bound to be some on one of these planets!  
GG: what do you need tape for??

TG: oh you know just one of my many totally cool and ironic projects with no sentimental value at all  
TG: gotta keep the creative juices flowing

GG: hmmm  
GG: hmmmmmm  
GG: hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

TG: oh my god what

GG: that sounds mighty suspicious to me mr coolguy!

TG: jesus fuck its just tape  
TG: not that big a deal  
TG: ill go find some myself

GG: :(

TG: dont make that face

GG: :((((((((

TG: what do you even want here

GG: i just want to know what's going on with you!  
GG: as soon as we were done sending that note to rose and dave, you flew off to go sulk in some corner of the battleship and you haven't talked to me or john since.  
GG: excuse ME if i just want to joke around and have fun like we used to!

TG: im not sulking

GG: >:(

TG: uh oh shes pulled out the eyebrows what am i gonna do now

GG: >>>>:(

TG: i dont think eyebrows really work like that

GG: davespriiiiiiiiiiite.

TG: jesus dick fine  
TG: its just  
TG: this dumb thing i used to do  
TG: or someone i know used to do  
TG: she taped all these sappy sentimental pictures of like rainbows and kittens and shit all over my ceiling  
TG: like a goddamn eye blistering concept art piece for hyperactive four year old girls riding high on lollipops and unicorn giggles or whatever  
TG: and then like  
TG: whenever i was feeling """"down"""""  
TG: shed tell me chin up and tilt my head back to look at all the crap she put up there  
TG: like that was really going to make me feel better or something

GG: :o

TG: what

GG: davesprite.

TG: what

GG: that's sooooooo cuuuuuuuute!!!

TG: whatever  
TG: its pretty low grade irony if you ask me  
TG: like first tier kiddie camper bullshit  
TG: but im pretty sure i can ratchet this thing up to a whole new level  
TG: throw some glitter and flowers at it   
TG: maybe some handmade arts and crafts frames with those big plastic jewels and a choking hazard label

GG: :|

TG: oh my god what now

GG: i just think that maybe you don't always have to pretend to do things because they're ironic!  
GG: if you want to put nice pictures on your ceiling because they make you feel good, you should!

TG: stfu

GG: grrrrrr.....

TG: okay okay just  
TG: dont tell john

GG: i won't!

TG: cool thanks

GG: so...who was she?

TG: who

GG: the person who put sappy stuff all over your ceiling!

TG: oh  
TG: idk does it matter  
TG: shes gone now anyway  
TG: also where you at with that tape  
TG: these things arent going to stick to the ceiling themselves

GG: oh! i'll be right there, so don't move!

TG: k


	10. The Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning this chapter for references to past child neglect.

"Dave?"

Dave stands outside the door to apartment 1021, looking up at a sleepy Liz through pointy shades that don't quite mask his uncertainty.

"Bro's not home," he says. 

"Oh," she says. "Do you know where he is?"

He nods, but doesn't elaborate. 

"Where?" she prompts. 

"Out," he says. 

She shifts her weight from one leg to the other. "Out."

Dave says nothing.

"Is there someone you can call?"

Dave shrugs. "Striders are a solo act."

Liz clenches her hand at her side, then releases it. Once. Twice.

She does it four times. Dave counts. 

"When." She stops. Shakes her head. "Do you want to come in?"

Dave hesitates. He gets the feeling that if he did, Bro would know.

He shakes his head. "Nah, I'm good."

She blows out a breath. "Then what do you want, Dave?"

He shakes his head, mutters "Nothing," and turns to head back to his empty apartment.

"Wait," she calls. "Do you want some apple juice?"

He stops. Turns. Looks at her. 

She's definitely looking at him, but her eyes keep shifting to different points while she talks. "I still have a bunch of those HappyApple bottles you like. You can have them if you want."

He nods, slowly. "That'd be sick."

She heads back into her apartment, leaving the door open behind her. Dave counts the seconds while he waits for her to re-emerge. 

When she comes out, it's with two cases of apple juice, five boxes of animal crackers, and a bag of gummi worms, all balanced in a precarious stack.

"I had these too," she huffs out, using one foot to close her door behind her. "Lead the way."

He does.

He notices the way her eyes dart around the apartment, taking in the changes from the last few months. Not much has changed, really.

She stops in the kitchen.

Except that.

"Fridge is broken," Dave says.

"Oh," she says. "Well. I guess it doesn't matter, this is all shelf stable." She squints at the kitchen counter full of weird puppets, shifting her load in her arms. "Where...?"

"My room is fine," Dave says, and opens the door to the short hallway.

She looks around his room the same way she did around the apartment, but she doesn't say anything. Dave shoves some clothes in his closet aside to reveal a little shelf with a meager stockpile of snacks. She sets the case of HappyApple down next to the shelf, then straightens and brushes her hands off on her pajama bottoms. 

"Alright," she says, "Anything else?" She seems almost...hopeful. But also sort of guilty.

Dave shakes his head. "Nah, that's good. Should be able to get my aj on for practically ever now. Thanks." 

She nods, arms clasped around her middle.

"Dave, are you okay?" she blurts out.

He looks at her, brows drawn together. "Yes?"

She nibbles on her lip some more. "Okay," she says. "Okay. I guess it's time for me to go."

"Yeah," Dave says. "I guess."

He leads her back to the front door in silence. She stops in the threshold. 

"Don't. Tell your brother I was here, okay?"

Dave nods, and moves to close the door. Just before it shuts her out completely, Liz puts her hand on it, halting it in its tracks. 

She looks at Dave, really _looks_ at him, even going so far as to kneel down to put herself at eye level with him. Dave feels a swooping sense of wrongness in his gut.

"Take care of yourself, okay Dave?" One hand cups his face, a thumb running across is cheek in a motion both gentle and unfamiliar.

She stands again, holds her hand against his cheek for one long moment, and finally spits out what she's obviously dying to say. 

"I love you so much. So, _so_ much. Okay? Don't forget that." Then she leans down and plants a kiss on his forehead before pivoting on one foot and hurrying away down the hall.

* * *

"Dave?"

Dave blinks, lifts his head slightly, and finds Rose staring at him from the desk where she was adding notes to the giant tome she's been keeping track of their progress in.

"Yeah?"

"You're staring."

"No I'm not."

She looks at her tome, back to him, then carefully sets her pen down before turning to face him fully. "You walked into the room three minutes ago, stopped, and have been staring at me ever since. Is there something you want to talk about?"

"I had a dream," Dave says.

Rose raises her eyebrows, a smile playing at her lips. "Oh? Is this the wayward patient come back to claim his chaise lounge? Hold on, I need to dust off my extensive notes on the intricacies of his troubled mind."

Dave makes a face at her. "Shut up," he says. "I just. Did I ever tell you about my babysitter?"

She stiffens, briefly, before relaxing again. "No," she says. "Go on."

He walks over to the couch and promptly sprawls across its entire length.

"There's not that much to say. Bro used to do a lot more DJing and puppet shows when I was a kid. Sometimes he'd be gone for days at a time. Liz was this neighbor a couple doors down, she'd come over, make sure I had enough to eat, that I was getting to school on time, all that."

"Liz?" Rose asks. She takes slow, deliberate breaths. 

"Yeah, that was her name. She was just always there, as far back as I can remember, popping in and out of the apartment all the time and telling me to brush my teeth and make my bed. Shit like that."

"And?" Rose prompts.

"And then she wasn't." Dave glances over at Rose, a little surprised at how attentive she is. "She just stopped coming over. I don't know why."

"And how does this pertain to your dream?" Rose asks.

"It was about her."

"Really?" Rose says, raising her eyebrows.

Dave rolls his eyes. "Don't get all hot and bothered by it, it was a memory."

"I see," Rose says. "What sort of memory?"

Dave looks at the ceiling. "I don't know. It was after she stopped coming over. Bro was gone. I guess I had a nightmare or something, and I went over to her apartment."

"And?" Rose prompts.

"And nothing," Dave says. "She gave me some applejuice and crackers, I went back to bed, end of story."

Dave swears he can feel Rose's silence. He glances over at her again. "What?"

She leans forward, crossing her arm on her knees. "Dave. If it was such a run of the mill memory, what prompted you to come talk to me about it?"

"Isn't it kind of weird though?" he says. "Do you ever have dreams, or memory dreams or whatever, about stuff before the game? Stuff that isn't even remotely related to the game?"

Rose taps her chin in mock thoughtfulness. "Such occasions are rare, but hardly impossible. There's no telling how our subconscious desires might take shape in the night."

Dave's face twists up in disgust. "Stop being gross."

She raises an eyebrow. "I'm not. I think you'll find it's you leaping to conclusions about my intended meaning here. Such baseless accusations you level at me."

He huffs out an exaggerated sigh, rolling to face up and away once more. "Oh no, Dave stepped in the innuendo pile again, everyone is surprised and never lets him live it down."

Rose smiles, then lets the moment settle into silence.

"It's just." Dave starts. Stops. Makes vague gestures at nothing in particular. "It's just. When that actually all went down, she was mostly tired and kind of fed up with me, I think. But in the dream, she seemed all nice and helpful and shit."

"Maybe your young mind was unable to correctly process her emotional state at the time, which you can now see clearly through the advent of dream bubble recall?"

"Maybe," Dave says. "I don't know. But here's the weird thing: solo memory bubbles play out exactly like they did in real life, right? Because it's hard to remember you're sleeping when you're the only player and you know all your lines, you practically wrote produced and starred in this shindig." 

He takes a breath. "But something changed. At the end of the dream, she kissed me on the forehead and told me she loved me. Which didn't happen the first time, and I knew it was a dream when she did that, which I guess is why I woke up, cause it felt all wrong and out of place. Which is weird. Because I must have made that happen, because I was the only one really there. I had to be. And I know it's super lame and you're absolutely not allowed to tell anyone else about it, but I was sort of hoping your weird psychobabble bullshit could tell me what it means." 

Silence.

He glances over at her. 

"Rose?"

He pushes himself up on one elbow to get a better look at her.

"Rose, what the fuck? Why are you crying?"


End file.
